


Sirius

by MagmaticKobaian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Chimera Edward Elric, Drama, Found Family, Gen, No Romance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parental Everyone, Parental Roy Mustang, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, except Tucker fuck that guy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26184319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagmaticKobaian/pseuds/MagmaticKobaian
Summary: It was obvious what the problem was, Tucker had thought, turning research over in his mind. The first one had been too old to adapt. Nina would have solved that problem just fine, but a fragile girl like that wouldn’t make it through the transmutation with her mind in one piece. If only he had someone—stronger. The ability to deal with trauma like an adult combined with the neuroplasticity of a child. The best of both worlds. Was such a thing possible?When the solution hit him, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Nina smiled back, and he ruffled her hair. If only she knew.Yes, it was a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t he seen it before? It had been right under his nose the whole time.Edward Elric was the perfect candidate for becoming his next talking chimera.This was sure to be his finest achievement yet.
Comments: 79
Kudos: 172





	1. Sirius B

**Author's Note:**

> A huge shout out to all the wonderful, lovely people in the FMA Writing Discord for being so supportive of this fic as I've written it! I'm very excited to post this, as it's my first attempt trying something new for story planning. I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> For art, fic updates, and other random bullshit, peep my [tumblr](https://magmatickobaian.tumblr.com/).

Context was a powerful thing.

A gust of cold wind scraped the last of the dying leaves across the sidewalk, sending them tumbling down the street. The familiar presence of the Tucker residence loomed in front of him, warm orange lights shining from behind sheets of crystal ice on the windows. He had called this place home, once. As he stepped toward the entrance, though, all he could feel was a hostile, alien sensation pierce him to the core, both luring him inwards and pushing him away.

Every fiber in his being screamed for him to leave. But this wasn’t just about him anymore. Something had to be done, and he was the only one who could do it.

The chime of the doorbell was sluggish, as if its batteries were teetering on the edge of death. Soon enough, the door creaked outwards, letting a wave of warm air roll over his chilled bones.

Shou Tucker looked down at him, a small smile plastered loosely on his face.

“It’s nice to see you, Edward.”

The greeting was normal, but far from the same. Before, Ed might have described it as agreeable, now it felt like slime in his ears. That pleasant demeanor rang hollow, the rickety facade of a family man propped up by an unhinged morality. Nothing was different, but everything had changed.

Context was a strange thing.

“Hello, Mr. Tucker,” he greeted, a too-bright imitation of pleasantness warped and ground between his gritted teeth. He shouldn’t be entertaining the idea that this was a normal conversation. The man’s guilt was so obvious it bled from his every pore, hanging around him in a vile, palpable aura. This song and dance would be the death of him, but there was nothing he could do about it anymore. He was a dog of the military now, and dogs had to follow the rules. As long as there was even the faintest shred of doubt, he would have to pretend he wasn’t conversing with human scum.

A distant frown pulled at Tucker’s mouth. The gesture was casual, but totally opaque in its meaning. He leaned forward, and his cold, studying gaze crawled across Ed’s skin.

“My, you sound tense. Is something the matter?”

Fighting back a wave of bile, Ed cobbled a reply together.

“I just had a few questions I wanted to ask you.”

Millions of emotions began to peek out from Tucker’s mask, all of them incomprehensible. The anxiety building in his stomach was multiplying by the second, falling inward and churning. The man motioned for him to follow, and he was led into the dining room, where they seated themselves.

Tucker sighed airily, as if Edward had just asked him to do the dishes.

“Is this about the talking chimera again, Ed? I’m afraid I’ve already told you about as much as I was able to learn from it.”

“It’s not about the chimera. Necessarily.” The words sounded strange, forced through his constricting throat. “It’s actually about your wife.”

There it was again—more flickers of strange, unreadable signals, flashing a desperate warning in a language he could not read. They lingered in the air, charging the atmosphere. Tucker laughed in a lonely sort of way, then smiled sadly. It was hard to say how much of it was fake.

“Well, I suppose you’re nothing if not bold.” 

His hair was standing on end. Absentmindedly, Ed wondered if it was possible to die from tension. Tucker continued, staring out the window as he did.

“I will admit, I’ve missed her dearly. She was a loving mother, and an even more loving wife.” 

Ed couldn’t stop himself from bristling as he listened to the hollow eulogizing. 

_I’m not so sure she would have loved you if she knew you were going to use her in a fucking science experiment, you twisted goddamned—_

“You’ll have to forgive me for asking for a bit more of your time, but would you mind staying for tea?”

Ed blinked. He was temporarily knocked from his all-consuming fear into the eye of the storm, allowing him a brief moment of clarity. 

Truthfully, he would rather be doing anything else than talking to Shou Tucker, let alone eating with him like he was a civilized human being. It was nothing but a suffocating farce. Why should he play along with the whims of a madman? But after how long it had taken him to become a state alchemist, he simply couldn’t afford to lose everything. For his Al’s sake, he would keep his head down, waiting until nothing could hold him back from striking.

Didn’t stop him from feeling sick, though. He couldn’t wait to see his brother again.

“Sure,” he shrugged in a crude imitation of casualness, “I’ve got time.” 

It wasn’t a lie; he had told Al not to worry if he took too long to get back to the dorms. His brother had hemmed and hawed about him missing the dorm-warming party, which Ed had brushed off. What the hell was a dorm-warming party, anyway? The last thing Ed wanted to do was celebrate his being bound to the military for good. He had shot back that he wasn’t going to any party including Colonel Bastard, and that Al shouldn't go after him if he was out for a while. 

Nobody was going to come running if this took a bit longer.

“Excellent. I’ll put the water on. Feel free to have a good look around, by the way. Since you’ve moved into the dorms, this may be the last time you’ll get to see the place.” With that, Tucker sat up, gliding towards the kitchen while humming a tuneless melody under his breath. Despite everything, Ed felt himself smirk. 

“Free reign to investigate? Don’t mind if I do,” he muttered to nobody in particular. He began to ghost around towards the living room, not completely sure what he was even looking for. 

Six months worth of memories surfaced unbidden through his mind. Countless nights of studying with Al, making snow angels with Nina, trying to train Alexander to perform increasingly more exotic tricks. Not all of them were pleasant, but many were. He wished he could bury them, knowing what he knew now. Six months down the memory hole.

Context was a bittersweet thing.

Nina bounded forth, materializing from nowhere and slamming into Edward’s (thankfully flesh) leg with all the force in her tiny body. A smile—a _genuine_ smile—began to spread across his lips. Thank God he wasn’t too late, at least. Everything was going to work out.

“Little big brother!”

Ed stifled his surging attitude, even if he thought to himself that a girl who couldn’t be taller than three feet had no room to call anyone little.

“Hey, Nina!” He spread his arms wider for a hug, which Nina quickly leapt into. Ed felt his cheeks grow warmer, and it was hard to stop himself from grinning like an idiot. “I missed you, you know.”

“I missed you too!” 

She was practically bouncing up and down in excitement. Another dampening wave washed over his joy. Since Tucker was almost certainly going to be arrested, who was going to take care of Nina? 

His thoughts slid around, aimlessly searching for a course of action, when he was interrupted again by a tug on his pant leg. When he looked down, a pair of big, shining puppy-dog eyes and trembling lips met him.

“Little big brother, is something wrong?”

Even when she was worried, Nina looked adorable. Ed leaned down, ruffling her hair.

“Hey, Nina, I have a secret to tell you.”

Somehow, her eyes got even wider. “A secret?”

He vigorously nodded his head. “Yup. It’s really important too. Do you promise to keep it?”

Nina considered the statement with an exaggerated hum and a frown. “How ‘portant?”

“Really. Really really important.” With each word, he leaned a bit farther forward, to emphasize the point.

“Okay! What is it? What is it?”

She was bouncing on her heels, her pigtails jumping along with her. Ed placed a hand on her shoulder, leaning in closer.

“Alright. I want you to go up to your room and stay there. No matter _what happens_ , you have to stay in your room, alright?”

Nina didn’t look very satisfied by the ‘secret’. “That's it?”

“Yup! Now get outta here.”

“But I don’t wanna…” she pouted. Kicking the ground, she began to walk aimlessly, sniffling a bit. Making a little girl cry was not one of his finest achievements, but given the circumstances, it was a mark of shame he was willing to live with.

He’d have plenty of time to apologize later.

No sooner had he wandered back to the dining room than Tucker emerged holding a tray of tea. The steam trails of boiling water skated through the air, painting the path the man had taken with their bends. Tucker gently placed the silver platter upon the white tablecloth, the cups and saucers lightly clinking against each other all the while. Taking his tea first, the man gently slid the other one towards Ed.

It was tea, alright. An earthy green liquid shone in the winter sun, shaking to the natural fluctuation of his hands. A bit cloudy, but he’d had worse. Taking a sip, he grimaced at the bitter aftertaste. Not the best blend he’d ever had.

“Thank you for humoring me, Edward.” His genuinely cheerful response was disarming, and more than a little creepy. “Now, what did you want to ask?”

“When did you say your wife left you?”

“Ah, you don’t hold anything back, do you?” This make believe game of playful banter was driving him up the fucking wall. “She left about two years ago.”

He had expected the time frame to match up, but hearing it confirmed out loud made his stomach drop out from under him. He was dizzy with anger, and he heard the high-pitched sound of chipping ceramic as his grip tightened on the handle of his teacup.

“That would be about when you made your first chimera, right?” It was obvious. It was so utterly, _blindingly_ obvious, but he simply could not speak. Even confronted with a pile of evidence that towered as high as the sun, it was too horrible to acknowledge out loud.

“I suppose that would be true.” Tucker stirred his tea, staring at Ed from across an ocean of cloth. “Would you like to know something interesting about my research?”

Edward’s focus stumbled, and he fell face-first into a mental pile of broken glass. 

“What?” The walls had fallen open, letting the howling winter cold shriek over his skin.

If Tucker had noticed his discomfort, he didn’t say anything. He took another slow, agonizing sip before continuing.

“Animals are quite difficult to work with when it comes to alchemical experiments.” He was looking down at his cup, and the glare of the overhead light flashed off his glasses, obscuring his gaze. “They’re skittish, and don’t like being held in place for long periods of time, especially if pain is involved. You’ve got to have a way to get them to behave.”

Ed could feel his hands shake numbly as he gripped the table. Every thought and sensation crashed into the next, cancelling each other out and producing a creeping pool of emptiness. 

“There’s quite the debate between life alchemists over the best method, but personally, I prefer a chemical approach. Clean and painless for all parties involved. My drug of choice is barbital. It’s fast-acting, and apparently quite bitter. I'm not sure, though. How does it taste to you?”

It hadn’t been anger causing that dizziness. Ed stood up, taking a few stumbling steps backwards before falling on the floor. The sound of his hyperventilation sounded far away, like he was being dragged below the water’s surface.

“Normally it isn’t _that_ fast-acting, but children do tend to have higher metabolisms.”

His limbs felt like they were slowly turning to lead. With a burst of adrenaline-fueled energy, he pushed himself up from the floor, staring Tucker dead in the eyes.

“If you do _anything_ to harm Nina, I’ll—”

“—pass out? Don’t worry, Ed, I won’t do anything to her. She’s not who I’m after.”

Chemicals whispered sweet nothings into his ear, coaxing his base instincts towards sleep. The last thing that passed through his head as he slumped unconscious to the ground was a single, unbroken note of terror, wrapped in a loop over the implications of his last statement.

Context was a terrifying thing. 

* * *

Routine was a comforting thing. It was easy for Al to lose himself in menial tasks like folding clothes or washing dishes, especially now that he had no need to eat, sleep, or otherwise take breaks. It had been hard to find a rhythm, at first. Many plates, and shirts had been thoughtlessly smashed or ripped to pieces in his powerful hands, and the less said about the time he tried to clean the windows of the Rockbells’ house, the better. In time, he had found a steady equilibrium, the perfect application of pressure best suited for everyday tasks.

A hand swiped in front of his vision, startling him out of his meandering thoughts. His head quickly turned to the side, and he was greeted by the image of Colonel Mustang looking amused.

“Oh!” He gave a flustered wave of his hands. “Um, hello, Colonel! W-when did you get here?”

“Just now.” The man was slowly turning, taking in the sight of the room. He made a long, low whistling sound. 

“You’ve certainly spruced the place up.”

Al tilted his head to the side. It wasn’t body language that came naturally to him, but being stuck in a suit of armor meant he had to improvise. 

“What do you mean? All I’ve done was clean all the dust and stains and stuff out.”

“Trust me, that already puts this in the top twenty percent of dorms here. I should know, given I used to live in one.”

Al would have said he didn’t understand, but he had seen how his brother treated living spaces. He _definitely_ understood.

“Did you come here for the dorm-warming party?” Al asked, looking around the room. “This place definitely isn’t ready yet, so you’ll have to come back later…”

“Huh? Oh, no, that’s not why I’m here.” The Colonel flicked his wrist, as though to dismiss the notion from the air. “I just came to check up on you two, though I suppose your brother isn’t in. Where’d he run off to?”

If Al had eyelids, he would have blinked. Hearing the Colonel openly admit he cared about them was… a little strange, to be honest. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken to the man without Ed being around. There was no doubt in his mind that if his brother was here, Mustang would be acting his usual smug self.

“He told me he was going to Mr. Tucker’s place to take care of something important a few hours ago and then ran off. He said not to worry if he was a bit late, but…”

The Colonel hummed, a note of dissatisfaction threading the sound. “That probably means he’s off doing something stupid.”

“Not probably, definitely.” Ed going off on his own always made Al nervous, but the fact that he would be supervised by a responsible adult sliced some of the edge off his anxiety. “I hope he’s not gone _too_ long.”

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see me when he returns,” Mustang replied with a smirk. _There_ was the smugness. “Especially when he sees his present.”

“You got him a gift?” Al’s mind bandied several ideas around like a hacky sack, trying to figure out what his brother would even need, or what the Colonel thought he needed, at least. “Is it a new set of clothes?”

Mustang burst into a fit of genuine laughter, and clutched at his chest. He dramatically wiped a tear from his eye, staring back at Al.

“Damn, kid. You know, you can be pretty mean to your brother sometimes.”

Al bristled, puffing his chest out. “‘Sometimes’? You don’t even know the half of it.”

“I’ll have to take notes. But anyway, here’s what I had in mind.”

From behind his back, the Colonel produced a small, crimson loop of a sturdy-looking fabric material, with a metal tag dangling off the end. Al squinted at it, but it didn’t take very long to figure out what he was looking at.

“Is that a _dog collar_?” If he had a mouth, it would be hanging open in disbelief. “Why?!”

“It’s like your brother always says,” Mustang continued, looking incredibly pleased with himself, “he’s a dog of the military now. I had it custom made to celebrate the occasion. I even got it in his favorite color.”

Sure enough, carved in neat letters across the metal tag was _Edward Elric_.

A brief pause of silence passed between the two, until the comedic tension could no longer be contained. It felt surreal, to just be laughing with the Colonel like this about something so stupid, but he was too caught up in the absurdity of it all to care.

Ed was gonna hate it.

“Maybe we can give it to Alexander afterwards,” Al thought out loud, his voice swimming in mirth. 

“Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. Don’t even change the tag.”

Oh, yeah, Ed would _definitely_ hate that. Al couldn’t wait to see him again. He straightened himself up, looking towards the door.

“I know my brother said not to go after him, but…”

The Colonel nodded, following his gaze.

“…but just in case? Yeah. I can’t have him going around causing property damage on my dime. I haven’t even given him his watch or title yet.”

Al perked up at this last statement. “His title?”

Roy snorted. “Yeah. ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’, courtesy of the Fuhrer. It’s got a nice ring to it, I have to admit.”

Al had to agree. There was something distinctly… _Ed_ about it. “I’m sure he’ll like it.”

“And _I’m_ sure he’ll be happier to get the watch. Come on, let’s get moving. Thousands of taxpayer cenz are at stake.”

In one smooth, pompous movement, the Colonel was already walking out the door. Al wondered how many hours of practice it had taken to perfect as he dutifully followed behind him.

* * *

It was warm. Wonderfully warm. Like being held in his mother’s arms. He never wanted it to go away.

Unfortunately, something else did. Something was rudely picking at the outside of his pillowed cocoon of anodyne numbness. What did it take to get some peace and quiet around here? He was hoping the sensation would go away on its own, but the scratching continued, until eventually the shell began to deteriorate, falling away to reveal reality once more. 

From out of a sea of fuzzy gray, a vivid barrage of color assaulted his eyes, sharp shadows randomly undulating in the blind spots of orange, flickering candlelight. The sound of skittering, chittering metals on nails on flesh echoed everywhere, redoubling on itself and giving the impression the room was far more crowded than it truly was.

More things were coming into focus, but Ed was suddenly slammed by all-encompassing pain.

His automail was just— _gone_. Not just the limbs themselves: the entire port system had been surgically ripped out from the nervous system. The fact that he was even alive after such a traumatic event was a miracle in and of itself. To add injury to even more injury, his remaining appendages had been broken and mangled, shoved into crude and profane angles. Even a broken arm shouldn’t be able to bend that way. Ed could only imagine what he looked like right now, a little twisted heap of bones, blood and bruises.

“Rise and shine!”

A horribly, _horribly_ familiar voice sliced through the fog of pain with surgical precision, and he remembered every moment that had led up to this. Without thinking, he tried to kick and push away from the source, but something was binding him up. Thick, heavy ropes bound him still, locking his remaining arm and leg into an extremely contorted position.

He strained his head up, easily spotting Tucker standing by a gas lamp. The low levels of light somehow managed to drag the man’s true self out, front and center, angular sharpness and a feral grin betraying no sign of compassion. He was dressed in white clothes, stark and baggy with bright splatters of blood on every surface. 

“I’m surprised to see you awake so soon, but I suppose it’s no surprise,” Tucker continued casually. A steady, repetitive, metallic noise was coming from near the table, but whatever the man was up to was occluded from Ed’s perspective on the floor. “You always were a fighter.”

Even if Ed wasn’t bound by ropes, movement would have been impossible. He was stuck here, at the mercy of Tucker. Dozens of caged abominations shrieked from their places on the walls, as if to mock him.

Despite his precarious position, Ed scowled, baring his teeth. He was going to tear this fucker to shreds, once he had two working arms again. 

“Why the fuck did you rip out the entire port system of my automail, asshole?” He squirmed a bit on the ground to emphasize the point, immediately regretting it when raw frayed nerves screamed back in response. “You know you can just take out the limbs themselves, right?”

Tucker looked at him brightly, a beaming smile on his face.

“That is a very good question! You see, if I was merely trying to _immobilize_ you, you would be correct that removing the entire port system would be an unnecessary and highly dangerous procedure. However, I can’t allow the metal to cause impurities in the transmutation.” His eyes crinkled, like he was exchanging a cute inside joke. “You’re an alchemist. I’m sure you know the dangers of such things.”

The transmutation? What the hell was going on?

He could feel something warm nearby. Craning his neck to the other side, he saw the sleeping form of Alexander. Well, he looked like he was sleeping, at least. Ed remembered the taste of barbital numbing his tongue.

Why was—?

Then it hit him.

His gag reflex was audible as he cried out in panic. His body was moving on its own, only succeeding in hurting himself more as he tried to escape. It wouldn’t budge. All he accomplished was further dislocating his limbs.

His heart was hammering into his bruised rib cage like a machine gun, giving him a nice jolt of pain with each beat. The hyperventilation was back and stronger than ever, and his voice took on a wheezing, yelping quality for each gulp of air. 

Composure slipped through his twitching fingers like sand pouring to the ground, but he would claw his way out if it was the last thing he did. Fear spilled through his blood, picking at any stray thought that had the barest chance of saving him.

“If you can’t have foreign material in the array,” he began at a clipped pace, an octave too high, “then what’s with the ropes? Why don’t you release me?”

Tucker threw his head back in laughter, laced with pure and innocent joy that threatened to upturn the contents of Ed’s stomach. As he leaned back, Ed was horrified to see the man was holding the ruins of his automail arm, slowly being picked down to the bones of its component pieces.

“You know what’s funny?” he asked cheerfully, using the mockery of a hand as a makeshift pointing device. “My wife said the same thing!”

This couldn’t be real. Ed had to be in hell. 

“I didn’t tell her why, of course—I’m sure you know how hard it is to explain things to non-alchemists.” Ed _loathed_ that greasy fucking expression on his face. How dare he speak like they were good friends? “If you must know, the ropes are made out of alchemized biomaterials compatible with the transmutation—spare hair, nail clippings, things like that—in order to provide a restraint mechanism that positively contributes to the expected transmutation.”

Some reprehensible part of Ed was almost impressed by that level of ingenuity. He didn’t have it in him to be disgusted that he was essentially wrapped in discarded biomass, as the imminent threat to existence as he knew it was priority number zero.

“Why didn’t you just keep me knocked out with those fucking drugs?”

Ed didn’t know why that question slipped out. Maybe it was more of a request than anything.

Tucker sighed, shaking his head as he clicked his tongue condescendingly.

“Ed, Ed, Ed.” 

There was an almost parental quality to his voice. Ed wanted it gone yesterday. 

“The integrity of your neural map is absolutely _crucial_ if this is to work. I need you as awake as possible, or else the end product is going to be defective.”

Tucker looked over him with an analytic gaze, and suddenly Ed _understood_.

Those strange glances, that unreadable expression: He had been sized up for this exact purpose. This had been Tucker’s plan ever since he first asked about the chimera that day.

Nobody was coming. No help was on the way. He had dug this grave, and now he was being forced to lie in it.

Ed couldn’t speak, curling up on himself in spite of the intense pain it caused. A dry, heaving sob wrenched from his throat, followed by another, and another. He was openly weeping, his tears pooling on the floor below him and lapping against his face.

“The array is waterproof.” Tucker chimed in dully. 

Ed started crying even harder.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, bawling his eyes out while Tucker hummed merrily to himself, keeping busy with his unholy arcane rituals. Those fucking chimeras were shrieking right alongside him, as if to say, “ _Welcome to the family_.”

For the first time in his life, Ed wanted to die. He went totally limp, letting gravity sort him out. Tucker looked at this display with a dissatisfied hum.

“Oh, there’s something I should mention.”

His crying diminished to wet hiccuping, but he didn’t even pretend to look up.

“I know about your brother’s blood seal, of course.”

The fucker had no right to even speak about his brother, but Ed didn’t have any energy left to fight.

“Normally, a soul’s connection to its vessel is self-maintained by its own blood. Recursive metamaintenance is an absolutely _fascinating_ subject, but I digress.”

There was a grinding sound, and the sound of unscrewed automail bolts rolling around on the table could be heard.

“In any case, your brother is an exception. He is tethered to this world by _your_ blood. Do you know what that means?”

Nothing but dead air. Distantly, Ed wondered if he could carve an array out with his fingernails, but he realized they had been ripped off and cauterized while he was out. So much for that plan.

“The death of a body means the death of any attached souls. This is normally a one-to-one trivial correspondence, so we don’t notice any abnormal behavior. But you and your brother have a _special_ bond.”

Tucker didn’t deserve to talk about their bond, let alone in such a casual, flippant manner. Ed wanted to cut out his tongue and feed it to crows.

“If you die, your brother does as well.”

The meaning of the statement, and the implications of Tucker informing him about it, weren’t lost on Ed in the slightest. 

“You don’t…” He was incoherent, badly mashing words together in an illogical mess. “I can’t…”

“I can’t have you giving up on me,” Tucker said flippantly, “it would ruin the final product. Suicidal in, suicidal out. Equivalent exchange. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

Ed didn’t feel like he was alive anymore, but he didn’t think he was dead, either. It was some other third thing, never before witnessed. Even the basic tenets of reality were snapping below his feet, and nothing made sense anymore.

Context was a powerful thing.

Tucker sighed, stepping away from the table. He wiped his brow.

“Well, I suppose it’s about time to—”

The bright chime of a doorbell rang through a rusty speakerbox, shooting like a dazzling beam of light into the depths of the core.

Tucker frowned. “Visitors?”

Ed moved his head up, eyes widening. He saw a frustrated growl split Tucker’s lips as he took off his haunting white gear, revealing his everyday clothes underneath.

“Excuse me for a moment, Edward. I’ll be right back.” He opened the door, pausing at the entrance. “Oh, and don’t strain yourself yelling. This room is soundproof.”

Click. Ed was left alone in the darkness with a bunch of animals. Sub-traces of light glinted off their beady red eyes, all of them eyeing him like prey.

If Tucker thought he was going to lie down and take orders like a dog (oh God, he couldn’t think like that again or he would vomit), he was sorely mistaken. Inhaling deeply as he could, he began to scream as loud as he possibly could.

“ _Al! Alphooooonnnnssssseeeee!_ ” It made his throat hurt like hell, but when had he ever let a bit of pain stop him? “ _Heyyyyyyyyyyy! Helllllllllp!_ ”

* * *

It was a pleasant winter’s day, or about as pleasant as they tended to get, anyway. Mustang had never been a fan of the cold, especially not the sludge gray slurries of melted snow that tended to pool on the streets, making driving a pain in the ass.

Al had miraculously managed to fit himself into the car without disassembling his armor into smaller parts, a feat which Roy considered to be a marvel of engineering. Al was nervously tapping his gauntlet against his legs, sending metal clangs bouncing off the car walls every so often.

It didn’t take too long to get to the Tucker residence, thankfully, and it was impossible to miss that looming mansion. Al removed himself from the car in a manner Roy could only describe as _extraction_ , and the two moved in unison toward the door. He pressed the doorbell, noting off-handedly that it needed a change of battery, and waited. 

And waited. 

And waited.

He was almost beginning to think nobody was home when the man finally answered.

“Good evening. Oh, hello, Alphonse!” Shou Tucker said, surprised. “Are you here looking for your brother?”

“Yes!” Al responded, a little too quickly to be casual. “Do you know where he is?”

“It’s the strangest thing.” Tucker put a hand to his chin, scratching it as he pieced through disorganized thoughts. “He came around a little while ago to ask me a few questions. I answered them, and then he simply ran off again.” There was a pause as the man considered something. “I believe he said he was heading towards the East Headquarters Library?”

Mustang groaned in exasperation, slapping a head to his forehead.

“He should know by now that he needs a watch to get in there. C’mon, Alphonse, let’s go. We need to stop him before he ends up burning HQ down.”

“Uh, r-right.”

Just as he turned to leave, he heard a horrifying, blood-curdling shriek come from below. It was muffled beyond recognition, leaving only the faint impression of what might have caused it nagging at his mind.

“What the hell was that?” Mustang turned back to face the Sewing Life Alchemist, who looked like a deer caught in headlights.

“Ah, see, you’ve actually caught me at an inopportune time. I was in the middle of doing some experiments with the chimeras, you see, when I heard someone at the door.”

Another scream roared dully beneath their feet. 

“The, eheh, _preparations_ tend to get them quite agitated. Sorry for the scare.”

Mustang would never understand why the military was so eager to fund his research.

“Right…” Noticing how Alphonse was beginning to shift uncomfortably nearby, he turned to leave. “Thank you for your help. We’ll be going now.”

“Have a nice day,” Tucker replied dreamily, before gently closing the door.

The shiver that passed down Roy’s spine as they returned to the car had nothing to do with the weather. Chimera research never failed to make him uncomfortable, but the hot lump in his stomach was especially upsetting. As they sped away, Roy couldn’t shake the vague impression that he had missed something. But what?

“I hope brother isn’t doing something stupid.” Al was sulking in the backseat, fidgeting faster than ever.

“That makes two of us.”

Hopefully, they’d manage to get there before something _really_ bad happened. I mean, isn’t that what they always did?

* * *

His throat was _killing him_.

“ _Alphooooooonse!_ ”

He could practically hear the blood being scraped up by the abuse of his vocal cords. At this point, he barely even sounded human. Haha. Real funny thought. This depraved spiral was sweeping him inwards like a riptide.

“ _Somebody! Anyone!_ ” 

A dumb idea entered his head. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

“ _…Mustaaaaaaaaang!_ ”

Did he even _want_ to be rescued if it was by that bastard? The pithy comment was quickly overwritten by a sobbing, pleading voice in his head screaming “ _Yes!_ ”, ready and willing to abandon all pride and dignity for the faintest frantic brush at a path towards salvation.

From beyond the soundproof veil, he heard a thudding procession descending into the depths.

His heart fluttered. That had to be his brother. It had to be someone who would help him. When that door swung open again, he’d be met by a towering suit of armor, or that smug lizard wearing a fancy pair of gloves they called a colonel. Fuck, at this point it could be his good-for-nothing father and he’d fall into his arms.

Teeming possibilities flitted behind the veil, wearing every shade of rescue and a helping hand from the rainbow. The thick, oaken doors creaked open, revealing the glint of round glasses and that savage cheer lining Tucker’s face.

His last chance had slipped away like running water. This was it. This was the end of Edward Elric.

“Now that we’ve got _that_ little interruption over with,” Tucker chirped, returning to his place at the table, he put his white coverings back on, draping him in stark light. He looked like a bastardized rendition of a holy man, free-wheeling between the realms of the sacred and profane without a care in the world.

Ed watched helplessly as he saw his automail disassembled into smaller and smaller pieces, unraveled into its most abstract components.

“Why are you doing that?”

His voice sounded like the wrong end of a paper shredder.

The man paused, a screw still held between his thumb and index finger.

“I’m disposing of the evidence, of course. Your automail is a _very_ distinctive piece of work, you know.”

From somewhere in his malfunctioning mind, a small bubble of pride in his childhood friend welled up, keeping him above the water for just a smidge.

“You’ll never get away with this, you know.” If Tucker had enough reason left in his head to realize he had to hide evidence, maybe Ed could talk him down. If not from the position of morality, then out of practical concerns, at least. The footholds before him were getting more and more unsteady, and he needed to latch onto _anything_ he could.

“Hmmm? Ah, well, you’re probably right about that.”

Was that the sound of metal being sheared apart, or his own heart being sawed in two?

“It’s more of a thought exercise than anything. If I were to try to cover the deed up, what would be the best way to go about it? I think it’s a fun little diversion!”

“Is that all this is to you?” Ed was hissing through closed teeth. “A fucking _game_?”

More scraping, clicking, _turning_. Each stray sound was shaving decades off his lifespan. He’d probably die of old age before Tucker even got to do anything.

“Well, of course not, Edward. It’s about pushing the boundaries of research in areas nobody else is willing to touch.” He paused, as if engaged in a hearty intellectual debate. “But from a certain perspective, yes, I do think it’s all a bit fun.”

With one last clang, a large metal strip rattled and banged to the floor.

“That’s the last of them.” Tucker dusted off his hands, then swiveled his head towards Edward. His steel gaze was boring hole after hole into his twisted form, pinning him down with sharp wire.

“I feel obligated to tell you about how this is going to go down, if only so you don’t cause any accidents in the transmutation.”

Ed snorted, a wicked grin splitting his face. “Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t try to cause an accident on purpose.”

The man sighed, like he was berating a naughty child.

“Trust me, none of them are accidents you would _want_ to cause, unless you’d _like_ to make this more painful than it already is. Oh, yes, I suppose the pain is the first thing I was going to mention, but you already knew that was coming, right?”

There was a laundry list of all manner of horrifying outcomes of the transmutation, as it turned out. More horrifying than the _intended_ one, at least. Tucker often appealed to his knowledge of human transmutation, then proceeded to jump headfirst into the abyss on life alchemy tangents that left a vile, stinging taste in Ed’s throat. He had tried to block most of it from his memory, but one thing was clear: The more he moved around, the more he would be hurt in the long run.

Alexander shifted a bit in his drug-hazed coma. As Ed had understood it, the animal portion was merely the vessel to be overwritten as much as possible by the human portion. Essentially, Alexander would die, but Ed would get to live on.

How lucky of him. It was almost funny. So funny he forgot to laugh. He whispered the smallest of apologies to the dog, a silent prayer to nothing and nobody.

“Before we start, might I brag a bit about my transmutation circle?” Tucker asked. “Well, I suppose you don’t have much of a say, so I’ll simply go right ahead.”

At least he had stopped pretending to be courteous.

“It’s quite ornate, indeed.” His eyes were tracing the fiendishly sharp, tapering lines, weaving and spiraling in abstract tandem. “I’ve managed to encode a self-sustaining reaction into the process. Normally, I might have to sit there for minutes on end, powering the circle. That kind of effort might kill a man of my age, you know! With this, I can sit back and take notes.”

Ed’s eyes felt like saucers. His jaw trembled in disbelief. “Take notes?”

“It’s an intricate transmutation, and I’m curious to see how it plays out. I don’t have any written data on the last one, of course, since I hadn’t developed this improved array at the time.”

Was he _giddy_ about this? Ed’s suppressed hyperventilation was threatening to break loose from his lungs once more.

“Anyway, I’ve stalled long enough. It’s been nice knowing you, Edward. Goodbye.”

Every muscle in his body tightened at once, making him feel three times smaller. The dam burst, and uncountably many thoughts from a deeper place of heart raced forth, spilling over uncontrollably.

No. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want this. _He didn’t want this._ This had to be a nightmare. He was going to wake up any second.

But what if it wasn’t? Shouldn’t he be escaping? But there was no exit now. Trying to struggle would only cause pain in the long run. But wasn’t that quitter talk?

He had so many things left to do. So many tasks left unfinished, scores unsettled, people and places to see. His whole life evaporated into white mist before him, leaving nothing but the sinking slope to the belly of the beast.

Tucker sauntered— _sauntered_ , with all the confidence in the world—towards the circle, gently kneeling down. 

Please stop, he wanted to say, but all he could manage was a pitiful cry. Tears began to blur his vision.

His bravado was being atomized alongside his future. He didn’t feel like such an adult anymore. He didn’t even feel twelve. Edward was eight, and his father was poised in the doorframe, one foot outside, looking down. 

Please, stop. Whatever he did, he promised he’d never do it again. Just please, please, please don’t—

Two hands came down, and in haunting, otherworldly blue, the array came to life.

Ed hadn’t known pain before now. There was no need to worry about moving, because it was all-consuming, locking down his cognitive functions until he could do nothing but meditate on agony. His reflective action was anything but quiet, though. Words ran loose from his mouth, bolting with reckless abandon through the air. What was he saying? He didn’t know, and wouldn’t know, soon enough. Something shifted, and a hatch fell out from under him.

* * *

Memories, boiled and stirred into cream. He was playing with Alphonse, skipping under the bright country sun, their mom watching from the top of the hill.

“You boys come inside, now,” the woman called cheerfully from the top of the hill. Laughing, they obeyed, crawling up the grassy incline. At this angle, Ed had to get down on all fours just to move forward.

When they got to the top, the sun and weather had shifted. Their mom was just beyond the doorway, collapsed on the floor. Ed ran forward, trying to shake her awake.

“Al! Al!” He screamed into the basement, calling for his brother, who was gone. Where was he? How could he bring him back? Something awful was eating at his side. Something was missing. But what?

“Stop moving around so much, Ed!”

The automail surgery was _hell_. Animalistic shrieks of frustration wouldn’t stop escaping from him, no matter how hard he tried to make them. His head turned to his brother, waiting nervously in the hall.

Al launched a punch, and they were sparring, metal against metal. It was surprisingly light, even with all those warnings Winry inundated him with about stability and unevenness. He wound up the next punch, ran forward, and—

He kept running, running, running. Where was he running from, where was he running to? It didn’t matter. The simple act was enough. It was a joyous, self-contained religion, the question and answer to its own problem.

This wasn’t his memory. What was this? Something wasn’t right about this. 

it was weird. like a whole bunch of memories just up and left and new ones took their place. he didn’t know what to think about it. it was sort of strange and a little funny too, almost like—

Almost like his mind didn’t really belong to himself anymore. A terrifying burst of lucidity, and the screaming started again. It was funny how he could know exactly what was happening yet be so utterly, completely lost.

He was on his way to catch the train, running as fast as he could to catch it. he loved running! he could run all day! It was hard to shake the stares cutting behind his back once he got seated. He could have lived with a bit of staring, but Al… 

Al held his limp, twitching body, two bloody stumps seared by hazy warm air in the dank, choking basement. Something wretched nearby, from the dead center of that damned fucking circle.

“Brother, what happened?!” His brother cried, a hollow echo tinging a familiar voice. “What happened to me? What happened to _you_?!”

he didn’t know what he was talking about. the memories were still playing but they didn’t make sense anymore. there was a mean-nice man with black hair who smelled like gunpowder and cologne. a nice blonde lady who reminded him of pain and happiness and lots of other things but he couldn’t remember why. his mom, but that’s not his mom, was it? his mom hadn’t been human—

Ed managed to claw to the surface one last time, reeled between a dual-sided existential crisis. It was the eye of the storm, but another storm lied within it. In one last, pathetic gesture, he clawed out towards Tucker. The man he used to consider a father figure. his owner— 

The abomination that was supposed to be his mother stared back, pulsing organs moving in an eldritch rhythm. It shouldn’t be alive. Nothing that was pieced together like _that_ could _possibly_ be alive. Yet there it was, wheezing for air as it slowly died on the basement floor.

The pain heightened every second. it was really hurting a lot. reminded him of something that happened to his arm and leg, but what was that he didnt know what that was. it felt like there was someone else nearby and it was kinda nice that he didnt have to be alone right now.

the blue light was making his eyes start to hurted. he wished it was gone. it kept getting brighter and louder and his ears hurt too

a big clapping noise. the light and sound made a big bang and then went away. whatever it was it made him really tired. he couldnt remember if he took a nap already cause he felt like he did but also didnt. he wasnt used to all this confusing stuff. maybe if he went to sleep itd get better later

it still kinda hurted a lot but not as much as before. the nice glasses-man—tucker, he vaguely remembered—smiled a whole lot which is good cause ed liked when people smiled. he lied on the warm floor and wagged his tail

wagged his tail? he couldnt remember ever doin that before he thought. oh well 

tucker said something about having finally done it. ed knew he said stuff a lot but normally it was just noise. well that wasnt entirely true he remembered him sayin words and stuff. he didnt know where he got all those memories from which was kinda scary but he didnt knew why and it made his head hurt. a lot of stuff was hurting actually but now his head hurt even more and he didnt like that very much

tucker said something he didnt get then left to go up the stairs. there was a bunch of… chimeras he remembered still in the room with him. they were also saying stuff that he couldnt understand. not understanding was making him sad and angry but he didnt know what to do. someone would eventually come back down an explain everything and it would be happy again

ed couldnt wait to see his brother

* * *

The first thing Mustang noticed upon pulling up to the East Headquarters Library was a distinct lack of property damage. He frowned, surveying the unusually pristine surroundings.

“That’s strange…” 

That hot, uncomfortable feeling had refused to leave him since they departed from the Tucker residence. If anything, it had gotten stronger. He stepped out from the car, trying to settle the buzzing nerves dancing upon his fingertips.

He quickly stepped up to the front desk. Al stood nervously at the entrance, obeying the restrictions on non-state alchemists being allowed in. If he didn’t know any better, he might have pegged the younger brother as a stickler for rules.

Before the young lady at the front desk could reply, he pulled out his watch, letting it swing slightly from the momentum.

“I’m just here to ask a question,” he quickly began. “Have you seen Edward Elric around?”

The woman frowned, furrowing her brow in thought. 

“I’m afraid I haven’t.” She turned backwards, locking her sights on another woman passing by. “Hey, Sheska!”

The mousy woman—evidently named Sheska—halted, and a pile of books wavered dangerously as they rocked in her grip.

“W-what is it?” she stammered.

“Has that Elric kid been by today?”

“Uhh… not that I know of.” 

Oh, this was doing _wonders_ for his anxiety. His mind bolted in ten different directions, grasping for reasons.

Maybe Ed _had_ been by, but the women had missed him? That didn’t seem likely. Despite his short stature, the boy left a noticeable wake in his path—which is why his disappearing act was so concerning. Maybe Ed had lied to Tucker about where he was going? That seemed to fit the bill a bit better. But what was so special about the library?

“It’s funny you should ask that, actually.” The woman had a knowing smile on her face, reveling in some inside joke. “You picked just about the only day I _haven’t_ seen him come in.”

Roy blinked. “Do you know what he’s trying to do here?”

“He keeps asking about the files on Shou Tucker’s talking chimera,” Sheska called from the back, wobbling a bit under the weight of her stack of books. “We keep telling him those are classified, but he doesn’t seem to want to take no for an answer…”

An irrational dagger of emotion plucked at his heartstrings, reverberating with a feeling Mustang had no description for.

“Would you mind showing me those files?” He jangled his watch a bit. “Preferably sooner rather than later. I want to check something.”

“Huh? Well, sure I suppose.” 

The woman at the front shot a glare towards Sheska, silently communicating the task at hand to the mousy girl before she ran off. A few seconds later, a distant crashing noise filled the air, and a wince passed across the room’s collective face like a shockwave. 

Waiting was filling him with aching fear, cold water, creeping through his bloodstream. Nagging questions of all shapes and stripes leapt forth. 

If Edward had been investigating Tucker, why had he left to go somewhere else after asking the man a few questions? What was he even investigating Tucker _for_ in the first place. He didn’t understand what was going on, and he didn’t like it one bit. That boy certainly loved to make him worry.

The moment he finally caught up with Ed, they were going to exchange some strong words.

When she had finally returned with an innocent-looking manila folder, he eagerly snatched it from her hand, giving a curt thank you before wandering off to find the nearest table and chair. Skimming through, quite a bit had been classified, but this would hopefully be enough to reverse engineer Edward’s harebrained scheme, and hopefully get the dizzying procession of worry and panic to dissipate a little.

There wasn’t much to read, but when he had finished, he read it again. And again. And again. It was a horrible, cyclic loop, burning into his retinas with raw crystal clarity through each iteration. A picture, vividly painted, had been branded into his skull.

_No_.

The word repeated and repeated and _repeated_ in a positive feedback loop through his head, doubling in volume and intensity with each hammered syllable. Without a word, he roughly returned the files to the front desk, running out the door.

“Colonel? Did you—”

Mustang didn’t give him time to ask. He grabbed his arm, yanking him along. There wasn’t any time for questions right now. There wasn’t any time at all.

Al was heatedly prodding him with questions from the backseat, but he might as well have been talking from the other side of the continent. Roy allowed only just enough of his attention to be assigned to driving to avoid a crash while the rest of his mind whipped itself into frenzied agony.

Fuck. _Fuck._ The boy had always called him an idiot, but this had proved it without a shadow of a doubt. _Fuck_. 

He needed to take deep breaths, but his wheeling self-doubt and hatred rebounded, telling him he didn’t deserve to calm down.

Fucking moron. Useless idiot. Scum. Waste of space. 

_Child murderer._

His foot slammed on the gas as the light turned green, and burning rubber squealed against slush-coated streets. 

Every red light mocked him, light rays smearing down from their glow like trails of blood. _His_ blood.

“Colonel!”

Al was screaming now, finally wrenching a fragment of his attention away from his downward spiral.

“Please tell me what’s going on! Did something happen to my brother?!”

How could Roy even answer him? It was only a hunch he was working off— _just a hunch, a hunch he had never been more sure of in his life but a hunch all the same_ —and one too horrible for words, at that. Words were failing him. He just kept failing these brothers.

Over and over and over again.

“I’m sorry, Al.” Could this light fucking _change_ already? “I don’t—”

Something was catching in his throat. This wasn’t helping his speech problems.

“All I can say is that I think your brother might be in danger.”

_Green light._

His car plowed forwards, carving against the howling winds of the approaching night.

“Danger?” 

Al’s voice was barely above a whisper, almost drowned by the humming machinery of the car and the grind of the tires on the road.

“What is he in danger from?”

Roy’s eyes narrowed as he saw a pinprick of cherry red light approaching on the horizon. He growled, foot hopping towards the brake.

“Shou Tucker.”

The rest of the ride played out in graveyard silence. They hopped from the car in unison, after a maddening procession of traffic lights had delayed them for months. His boots smacked hard against the cold concrete, and his gloves shifted with a life of their own under his hands.

They arrived at the door. If Roy had considered it for longer than half a nanosecond, he might have thought about things like “due process” or “reasonable doubt”—but if there was one thing he didn’t have time for right now, it was reason.

The lock of the door made a sharp cracking noise as Roy’s shoulder rammed into the center of the door. A few more attempts, and the metal mechanism finally split and gave way, and the yawning entrance of the Tucker residence stretched before them.

The devil himself was walking up from hell, white lab clothes stained into smattered pinks and rose reds. He was bathed in a halo of ecstasy, a transcendent, beatific joy shining in invisible radiance.

“Oh, hello!” 

Tucker waved, and his grin split even wider. His wide eyes looked distant, completely blind to the world around them. He looked as if he might do a little curtsy, or bow, or other parlor tricks in a giddy mockery of social decorum.

The approaching darkness of the night was bathing the place in dull blues and blacks, wrapping the world in a curtain; the day coming to a close.

“You’re just in time!”

_Too late he was too late he didn’t make it he didn’t make it_.

With speed he didn’t even know he had in him, Roy sprang forward, seizing the man’s collar and pinning him up on the wall. Out of reflex, Tucker began reaching for his throat, but his expression remained frozen in place. Unchanging. He couldn’t do anything about it.

He wasn’t able to stop it. 

“Ah, I suppose you’ve figured it out?” There was a playful, childish pout bobbing in his tone. Too casual, like none of this was happening. None of this felt real. “Such a shame. After all the effort I went through to hide the evidence.”

One snap. All it would take is one good snap, and Tucker would be no more. His trembling hand wavered in the air for eons, one twitch away from frying this… this _monster_ into oblivion. Eventually, it lowered, falling into a shaking limpness at his side.

Death would be too good for this walking pile of _garbage_. But more importantly, it wasn’t what Ed would have… what Ed would have— 

Nausea rocked him like a reloading shotgun, and he dropped Tucker to the ground. His hands flew up to his mouth, and he tried to fight back the hot, searing pain of stomach acid in his throat. 

“Colonel!” Al ran up behind him, a ball of clanking metal. “Please, just tell me what’s happened!”

He turned his weapons arsenal of an expression back to the man lying on the floor, holding back against the wave of breakneck revenge flying through him. Tucker’s expression was as light as ever, which only caused his grimace to twist deeper.

“Shou Tucker.” The venom coating each syllable was visible. “If you’ve killed—”

His face lit up, like he’d just been told the greatest joke in the world.

“Killed?” Tucker laughed, dismissively waving his hand through the air. “Oh, no, no, no, friend, I think you’ve misunderstood a tad. I’d never _dream_ of killing Edward Elric. He’s my finest work!”

Time slowed to a pause, and all emotions vacated him. Roy felt like a tightrope walker who had just lost their center of balance, and now threatened to tumble hundreds of feet to the ground. 

The thread recoiled, bouncing back, and he fell. The last piece clicked into place.

No, Edward wasn’t dead. It hadn’t been as bad as he thought.

_It was far, far worse_. Worse than he ever could have imagined possible. 

Roy had seen a great patchwork of war crimes in his time in Ishbal, piecemeal recollection of a history of trauma woven from flesh and bone. Recalling it all at once would have driven him insane. Sometimes, he remembered the sobbing mother, desperately tugging the arm of her child, pinned under the crumbled wreckage of a school. Sometimes, it was the young man carrying his dying lover, calling out for someone, _anyone_ to help. There was nobody coming, though. The doctors had all died two days ago, at his hands.

To still be in the military, to know he was willingly contributing to the machine that had allowed—had _approved_ of—such atrocities to pass sight unseen sickened him every day, and the line he was walking seemed to get narrower with every passing moment. Ultimately, he had nothing but faith: faith that there could be reform, faith in the good in men’s hearts, faith that he was doing the right thing. But most of all, faith that he could protect those closest to him.

His house of cards had come tumbling down.

A raw cry emerged from some unknown part of him, and he savagely kicked at Tucker’s ribs. The unholy crack that split the air and the feeling of crumbling bone giving below his feet made clear that he had broken something.

_Good._ That wasn’t even a billionth of a billionth of the pain the man had inflicted upon the world.

“Colonel, you’re hurting him!”

Roy glared at Alphonse, and the boy recoiled so hard he winced. Seeing a giant suit of armor look _afraid_ was a sobering reminder of his real target. He wasn’t here to get his revenge on Tucker, no matter how much he desperately wanted to. 

This was for Ed.

“…I…sorry, Alphonse,” he muttered sheepishly, taking a step away from Tucker. The man’s expression was still impossibly, infuriatingly happy, but a note of pain was lining it now. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“It’s alright.” 

Roy wanted to shrink into the earth. Even now, with the obvious overtones of fear, panic, _terror_ lining the boy’s echoing voice, he was trying to assure him. It wasn’t right. _None_ of this was right. Al looked around, his gauntlets trembling.

“But… what now? What do we do?”

Mustang couldn’t let him see what lay below. He had seen pictures of the first talking chimera Tucker made, both in the files and scattered newspaper articles from around the same time. Even before Roy had known what went into making one, its appearance had been ghoulish and depraved. Now, the mental image of the thing made him break out into a cold sweat. It was unbearable. And that had been a complete stranger. He could not and would not imagine what Ed looked—

Even thinking about it was threatening to make him throw up. Reeling away, his mind reached for the farthest subject from Ed, and an unnoticed concern came to light.

“Al,” he commanded softly, looking firmly into what passed for the boy’s eyes. “Can you go find Nina and make sure she’s alright? I’ll go down to the basement.”

Al stumbled back again. “What?” 

His surprise quickly melted into anger. 

“But my brother’s down there! And you _still_ won’t tell me what—”

“ _Al._ ” 

Roy didn’t have the presence of mind to care about the crack that ran down his voice. Al seemed to, though, as he paused in his tracks.

“Please,” Roy continued, begging, “trust me.”

Years passed in the span of that silence. A howling gust of wind burst through the open door, rattling every loose object in sight. Tucker, still resting on the floor, shivered.

“…Fine.” 

The tone of the younger brother’s voice made it clear that things were not fine in the slightest, but he trudged upstairs, his clanking audible long after he had passed from sight.

“How noble of you.”

Roy kicked Tucker in the same spot, this time eliciting a pained cry. Without dignifying the statement with a response, he marched over towards the phone perched on a nearby table in the living room. 

He couldn’t call another unit in to help deal with this. Tucker was under his command—a fact which made him want to wash his hands until he had scrubbed them down to the bone—and therefore _his_ responsibility to deal with.

When the other side of the line picked up, he was greeted by the faint buzzing of celebration in the background.

“ _What’s up? Hey, wait is this the Tucker residence? That you, Ed? Sorry, we kinda started the party without you. Your brother wandered off with Roy a while ago, I think they’re looking for you._ ”

Oh, right. The party. It seemed like a distant echo from decades in his past.

“No.” He had plastered on a facade of composure, but Hughes was bound to see through it. It was more for himself than anything else.

“ _Jeez, okay, Mr. Morbid. You sound like someone died. Why are you over there, anyway?_ ”

Hughes had no way of knowing. Roy told himself this, over and over again. That didn’t stop him from wanting to strangle his friend from the other end of the line. He took a long, deep breath.

“I need you to get everyone over to the Tucker residence as quickly as possible.” The receiver was shaking badly in his hand. He wondered if Hughes could hear it. “Nothing serious, it’s a casual thing.”

_This is more serious than you could possibly imagine. Don’t tell anyone except known trustworthy agents._

“Understood.”

The call died, and the flat buzzing tone was left behind as its beheaded remnants.

He stepped over Tucker, gliding towards and down the stairs like a ghost. His feet carried him forward in spite of the voice in his head screaming at him to stop.

At the end of the hall, a large door stood, very slightly ajar. A thin ribbon of flickering orange candlelight peeked through the crack. The muffled assembly of a dozen chimeras rattled and hollered at nothing. Warily, he approached, knowing damn well he was unprepared for anything in that hell pit. 

As he stood just outside the door, a memory from earlier that day raced unbidden through his mind, stealing center stage. 

_“Ah, see, you’ve actually caught me at an inopportune time. I was in the middle of doing some experiments with the chimeras, you see, when I heard someone at the door.”_

The hammer that broke the camel’s back finally came crashing down. His knees turned to jelly, and he collapsed to the floor, barely catching himself. All his years of work concealing his emotions was bowled over like a light summer breeze as he sobbed. 

He had been there. He had _been there_ , Ed had been _right there_ , screaming for help, and he did nothing. He did nothing. All Roy did was walk out and leave. There had been something wrong, it had eaten away at him, but he left anyway. He left. He had _left_.

It had seemed like such an innocent thing. Context sure was a bitch, huh?

The truth of the matter tore around his heart, turning it into an open wound. No matter how many times he confronted the situation, it only hurt more. 

When he had promised himself he would protect those boys, a small, nagging part of him had always wondered when he would let them down. Not even his most cynical voice had expected it to come so soon—and in such a raw, impossibly depraved form.

Roy could have been there for three second or three hours, for all he knew, sobbing his heart out to an empty hallway. He couldn’t walk in there. No matter how he tried, his legs refused to work. What could he—?

The quiet squeak of the door hit like a gunshot to his addled ears. Roy’s head whipped upwards, frozen in fear, reaching for an explanation. It didn’t take long to find it.

Something was pushing the door open.

_From the inside._


	2. GN-z11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in sands of the desert  
> A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
> A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
> Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
> Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Content Warnings: Depictions of violence and the aftermath of violence, PTSD flashbacks, vomiting, strong emotional content, swearing) 
> 
> Hello, everyone! I apologize for taking so long to update; hopefully this chapter will be worth the wait. I'm sure getting a lot of mileage out of a single day! Feel free to tell me how much of a terrible person I am for writing this in the comments.

You never knew what you had until it was gone. How many more times would Al be forced to learn that lesson?

It was one of those things he had never taken seriously as a kid. Just another toothless platitude in a sea of indistinguishable bon mots, the kind adults loved repeating to children like it was going out of style, as if it hadn’t long reached that point already. In one ear and out the other. What did a bunch of stupid adults know about his problems, anyway? Al could never have imagined them understanding.

Even when, say, his favorite swinging tree had fallen into the river after a vicious summer rainstorm brought down a flood and he cried for a week, he hadn’t learned a thing. Children weren’t keen on divining messages of cosmic morality from random events. It was just one of those unpleasant facts about the world lurking on the edges of childhood innocence, eager for an opportunity to make itself known.

Standing in front of his mother’s gravestone, the lesson finally hit him. Both of them. 

It was too much to bear. It was easier to try and fight it, push back an inevitable reality of the world, if only for one last, fleeting glimpse at a time that no longer was.

For his troubles, the world taught him again, harsher than before.

Al never knew how much he could miss simple things, like the feeling of wind on his skin, grass between his toes, the taste of a home cooked meal, the warmth of another person’s touch. Unfathomable chunks of his world had been ripped away, leaving him a literal shell of a person. 

He had learned, but at what cost?

Sometimes, he could pretend everything was the same, but that only made the inevitable intrusion of reality that much more painful. Every day was difficult, some were unbearable. It was a virus, creeping out of himself and into others. It was the night sky, mirror of the slow-burning reflection on his inability to sleep. It was the fear he saw in every stranger’s tensed posture, cowering at the sight of a giant suit of armor. But, worst of all, it was the shadow that passed over Ed’s face when he realized he was enjoying his senses, cruelly reminded that Al lacked them. 

Neither of them could live without the other. Both anchored the other. Sometimes, though, Al wondered if he was tied like a weight around his brother, dragging him down to the depths. A burden.

Ed would die before ever saying something like that, though. Even if it were true, they would hold onto each other as they fell. They could go through hell itself with each other by their side.

What was he supposed to do if he looked over and saw nobody was there?

He needed to see his brother again. Every second they were apart was pure agony. Lead pinned him down, inducing the sinking feeling of plunging into a bottomless ocean. The Colonel was hiding something, in some foolish attempt to protect Al from the truth, but all it did was make everything _hurt_ so much worse.

The world was turning against him. The repetitive crashing of his metal armor, echoing through his hollow body with each step, set him on edge. It was like hearing your heartbeat in your ears, much louder and painful than it had any right to be. He had called this place home, once, but it now felt completely foreign. Where was his beloved routine now? Everything was crashing down, and it was too raw and too distant for his liking.

His feet took him towards Nina’s room, sightlessly weaving through ever-darkening corridors. Al might have been walking through the second floor, but his mind was firmly stuck on thoughts of the basement, and every stray hunch and speculation of what might have happened down there was worse than the last. One in particular was too unbearable to consider, waiting at the end of an endless procession of anxiety.

A door stood at the end of the hall, a small amount of light daring to leak onto a canvas of dull blue shadows. Nina’s room. Al picked up his pace. He wondered how fast his heart would have been beating if he still had his body. His destination was several miles away, and somehow exhaustion managed to dig its way into his body. How was that even possible?

His gauntlet rested on the handle for ages, as gently as steel was able. He applied the lightest possible pressure he could to test it.

Nothing budged. Locked.

“Nina?” he called experimentally. 

A tiny squeak came from somewhere inside, swaddled in the blanketing muffle of cloth or fabric. It would have been adorable in just about any other context. 

“Nina.” His voice was a little more forceful, bolstered by a projected sense of authority and frustration at the entire situation. “Are you okay? Do you know what’s happening?”

A few moments ticked by, filled with nothing but the background static of the universe. For a half-split, lunatic moment, Al almost feared the worst, but a tiny reply came back.

“…big little brother?” 

There was no longer anything remotely cute about how she sounded. That was _fear_ in her voice. Fear of _what_ , Al couldn’t say, which caused the panic welling deep within his core to boil over faster.

He had to keep calm. If not for Nina’s sake, then for his own.

Or his brother’s.

“That’s right. It’s me, Alphonse.” The gentleness of his voice was dampened by the echo through his armor and the aching, darkened halls.

Something shuffled from behind the door. The tugged with indecision and pauses, the girl completely unsure what to do.

Despite the gentleness he tried to put on, it was quickly driving him mad below the facade. His _brother_ was down in that damn basement, God knows what happened to him, or was _still_ happening to him, for that matter. A primal part of him was chittering, demanding he just knock the door off and drag her downstairs, kicking and screaming if he had to, so he could get it all over with.

It terrified him that he was capable of thoughts like that.

“Um…” A nervous reply squirmed out from under the door. Something was faintly blocking the light coming through the cracks now. “Little big brother told me a secret and I’m s’posed to keep it.”

“You can tell me, Nina. He’s my brother, too.”

Another pause. He needed to keep calm, just a little bit longer. It wasn’t Nina’s fault, he shouldn’t be thinking like this. Just a bit longer.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Just a little bit longer.

“Well… little big brother said to go to my room and not come out.”

A gash widened through his invisible heart. If he didn’t know any better, it would have almost sounded like a game: The kind of thing he and Ed did as kids, daring one another to see how long they could go without saying words with the letter “e” or hopping everywhere on one leg, and a laundry list of equally inane tasks. 

“Could you… wait here a little longer?” He prayed to whatever God was out there that the echo in his armor might hide the cracking of his voice. “I need to go check downstairs, to… to make sure it’s alright for you to come down.”

A microscopic whimper eked through the doorframe.

“Big little brother, is something wrong?” she warbled. Her shadow flickered forward as Nina took a few hesitant steps forward.

Al wanted to tell her, “No.” He wished someone could come forth, telling them it would all be fine. He wished that, any second now, his brother would come running up to him, scowling and ranting about how the stupid Colonel needed to stop treating him like a toddler.

He just wanted everything to go back to normal. But what if it never did?

“I’m not sure what’s going on, Nina. But that’s why I need you to stay here for just a bit longer, until it’s safe.”

The strength in his voice was rapidly faltering. Its smooth, comforting qualities had cracked and chipped away, leaving behind an exhausted, angular roughness. At least he couldn’t cry. Al didn’t know whether to consider that a curse or blessing at the moment.

“…I’m scared…” Nina began to shuffle behind the door. The image of the Colonel’s haunted face flashed unbidden through his mind.

_That makes three of us._

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The dark halls were increasingly stealing his focus, beckoning him below. “Will you be alright on your own for a little while longer?”

A muffled sniffling noise, followed by throaty crackling.

“Y-yeah…I’ll be strong for little and big brothers.”

The world spun off-kilter, and everything felt too shallow and deep, claustrophobic and looming. There was no way he could stay here for even another minute.

“Stay strong, Nina.”

He took a step forward, but one last thought chained him in place, demanding to be let free. For one last time, he turned back toward the door.

“I love you.”

He dashed back through the manor, weaving through ever-darkening corridors of shadows. The way back should have been clear, but a phantom pain wracked his body, grasping for a physical response that no longer existed.

When had he last told Ed he loved him? What a stupid thought, especially at a time like this—but now that it was in his head, it wormed into his brain like a parasite, consuming him. He had taken that fact for granted; of course they loved each other, they were brothers, right? The walls were closing in around him, and even though he had no lungs, they were denying him the air he needed.

It was maddening. As the scene continued to be set before him, it wove a horrifying web of unreality, liquifying insanity spilling forth, blooming across every surface, dizzying him with dark possibilities. But the center of it all, its crown jewel, was still a black hole, a deathly pale curtain obscuring the very heart of the matter. His brother. 

Who was still down there. In the basement. Waiting.

For him.

When he finally escaped the labyrinth, emerging into the living room, the first thing he saw was Tucker attempting to crawl out the door, inching forward in aching intervals despite the ruddy wet spot blooming against his ribs. Gathering up his emotions into something resembling composure, Al trudged toward the man, his memory showing the path forward in spite of the creeping darkness.

“Mr. Tucker.”

The man froze before slowly twisting into position, staring needles at Alphonse. Despite the unnerving revulsion that charged his body, Al’s face remained an immobile mask. Not like he had much of a choice.

“Hello, Alphonse.” 

His voice popped with liquid traces of blood, and a small ribbon of the stuff had begun to trail from a corner of his smiling mouth.

Al felt himself stiffen up. “Do you…?”

No good question stepped forward from his mind to follow it up. Shaking his head, he tried again.

“What happened?”

Tucker laughed, immediately wincing as the convulsion scraped skin and muscle against fractured bone. Al had heard that laugh many times before—it had always been light, playful, reassuring. But the context was all wrong. The buzzing in his head was coming to a fever pitch.

“This isn’t funny!” he snapped, stepping forward with a slam of his foot. The metal carved a groove into the laminated wood. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on—”

The man simply laughed again. With clenched fists, Al lunged forward again, dragging the man upward by his arm. A shudder passed over Tucker’s body, and a sharp hissing noise slipped through his clenched teeth when the grip around his wrist tightened. Despite all this, he was still. Fucking. Smiling.

Despite the darkness, Al was seeing red.

“Well, I had hoped to spare you the details, but…” A giggle escaped him. His voice was choppy and sawtooth, quivering in pain spasms. “If you insist. Who am I to deny the results of my research to bright young minds?”

Tucker began to explain.

At some point, Al must have let go, and Tucker must have fallen to the floor. But the words continued to come. Progressively, his body locked up, refusing to take input. It was just him, his thoughts, and understanding.

For an immeasurable instant, time sped up. The darkening of shadows, normally imperceptible, came as suddenly as a switch being flipped. Tucker had begun crawling again. One hand clenched in the winter air, grasping for freedom.

A stray thought danced through like a falling snowflake— _he’s going to get away._

A chain reaction ignited, roaring to life, and all at once, his body was his again. The red was gone from his vision, leaving behind perfect crystal clarity, but his head screamed with boiling crimson. No time for thought anymore. Only instinct.

In a single motion, he dragged the man back into the house, even as his hand desperately clawed out for safety, and wrenched him back into the air. 

A spiked gauntlet embedded itself in Tucker’s stomach, and now, more than he ever had in the past, Al wished he could feel again.

* * *

Ed didnt know why but he was starting to be realy scared for some reason.

Tucker had been gone for what felt like a realy realy long time now and he hadnt come back down yet. He thought he heard noises outside like he came down but then they stopped an there had been a bunch of weird sounds outside. It was just him an the chimeras so he had lots of time to think about it which he didnt like very much. The noises outside were very loud and made him think of sadness which made him feel sad too. It took him a bit but he remembered the sound was sposed to be called crying. 

Who was crying? Did something bad happen? It felt like something did but he didnt know what it was. 

Ed was having a real hard time remembering anything at all realy. Like a lot of stuf was blocked out so he couldnt get to it in his head. There were a few thoughts that were real strong though. He remembered he needed help. Thats right he needed somebody to help him from something. It couldnt be tucker thats what he remembered. He didnt know why it couldnt be Tucker but thats what his head said.

The crying voice outside didnt sound like him so maybe it was someone else. Maybe theyd help him. When Ed tried to stand on his legs though he realised something was wrong.

Something about his legs didnt feel right like they were bent out of shape. They felt realy wrong and they wouldnt stop shaking. He fell over onto the floor an the fall made him hurt more, wich was bad cause he already realy hurt a lot.

He tried a few more times but the same thing kept happening and happening. Looks like hed have to walk with all four of his legs. Or wait wasnt it two legs and two arms? That seemed right. Ed didnt know how hed forget something like that

Walking like that worked but it still didnt seem right. It kinda made him feel… embarrassed that was the word. Why? He was just walking whyd he be embarrassed about it? Hopefully when he got some help it would make sense finaly.

When he got to the door he realised there was another thing wrong. He needed to open the handle but not only could he not reach from the ground but when he leapt for the handle he couldnt turn it with one hand. Why was that?

Oh his thumbs was missing. Weird. Whered they go?

Of all the misteries so far this was the scariest one for some reason. It made him feel realy realy wrong inside but he didnt know what made that thought so special.

He needed to get help real soon.

Opening the door was hard but he eventually got it by using both hands an moving his whole body to turn. There was a clicking noise and it swung open but only a little.

The crying noise sudenly stopped which made him stop to. He couldnt really stay still though cause the handle was slippery and he couldnt grip it right. He tried his hardest but his stupid stupid legs and hands stopped doing what he wanted them to and he fell over an sended him a bit past the door. Now he could see who was— 

Oh.

He knew that face.

* * *

_He knew that face._

Edward—or the _thing_ that wore his face like a mask, anyway—was staring intently, eyes slowly widening, like a pool of blood. It hadn’t fallen very far forward, leaving only its upper half visible from Roy’s current vantage point, but it was already far, _far_ more than he was capable of understanding.

It looked nothing like Tucker’s original talking chimera, for one. If you didn’t look at the limbs, the thing looked just like Ed, complete with a mop of golden-blonde hair and a scrawny frame.

Unfortunately for Roy and his sanity, the limbs had caught his attention like an emergency beacon, because _oh God, what the fuck was that?_

It looked like the arms of a dog had been welded against the side of his torso. The way his—its— _whatever’s_ muscle structure seemed to shift and fold under the skin was a terrible fusion of biological machinery that shouldn’t work, _but somehow did._ Roy didn’t— _couldn’t_ —imagine what the rest looked like.

Somehow, though, none of that was what hurt him most. It was the face. Edward’s face.

Physically, everything from the shoulders upwards looked nearly identical. If you stopped to stare intently, like Roy was currently doing, minor abnormalities became apparent—small misalignments of bone and muscle that were a little less than human—but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was his expression. _Its_ expression.

Ed was a child, but he was no idiot. There was always a shrewd, analytical angle hiding in his glare, constantly sizing up every man, woman, and child in its path. Even when the boy was physically still, you could see his mind racing a million miles a minute, his bright, beaming eyes full of energy and life. 

But this?

If Ed had been a spitfire, then the thing before him was a languid puddle. That great big stare might have been wide and watery, but it swam with dull stagnation, any spark of keenness sanded down beyond recognition. Its eyes were devoid of any signs of higher thought. Devoid of any signs of _Edward._

It was a struggle to pull his focus inwards, but even though the inner workings of his mind were still jammed with unprocessed _everything_ , he was able to force a decision through. Everyone involved had been under his command, so it was his duty to deal with the aftermath.

It was his responsibility to kill this thing.

Even though he knew what he had to do, it didn’t make it any easier to actually do it. Emotion, primal and unnameable, dug a raw, gaping hole into his wounded heart, burrowing through it completely. Rather than hide from his pain, he dove into it, focusing on the sensation alone. If he let himself think about it any more, the second-guessing would begin, and the doubt would trap him in a tar pit of indecision. This needed to be quick.

His hand began to rise slowly on its own, fingers following a well-worn groove of muscle memory as they slid into place. A small bubble of tension was building in his converged gesture. His thumb was slipping greedily against the index finger.

One twitch is all it would take.

The thing’s eyes moved slowly towards his hand. Roy tightly shut his eyes, but the image wouldn’t leave him. 

Focus. Focus on _anything else._

It was way too hot down here, for one, likely due to the complete lack of any kind of ventilation system to speak of. The air was stained with the smell of animals and sweat and oil and warm bodies, and a nauseating miasma of dozens of other things. It made him sick to his stomach.

It was ironic, really. A flame specialist who hated heat. His “comrades” would have loved to give him shit for that one. He tried to keep to himself most of the time. No sane person wanted to be out here in the fucking desert for months on end, slaughtering wave after wave of people that never seemed to end. It wasn’t right to think of them like that, a faceless mass, but stopping to take in the gravity of the lives he had put an end to really _would_ make him snap.

Snap. Haha. Funny. He wished he remembered how to laugh.

The white sand adamantly reflected back all light and heat sent its way, trapping Roy in the jaws of a two-way radiation trap. Blood was boiling in his veins from the temperature alone, and don’t get him started on the choking anxiety blocking his arteries. He could scarcely imagine how anyone managed to live out here.

Well, _had_ lived out here. There wasn’t going to be anyone left after they were done.

The memories of what he had done were burned out, the remnants of cigarette pin holes riddling the fabric of his mind like countless black stars on a white sky. They weren’t recollections fit for the waking world anymore, their charcoal impressions instead lingering in his nightmares. No matter how much he wished otherwise, he remembered. Each face, an individual, a person, processed by the flames into oceans of dead ash.

Here he was, still in the military, with the audacity to pretend it was all okay. He was a monster. 

The curtains of his dorm room were kept perpetually closed. If Roy bothered to check, he might have seen their pale blue surface bleached into bone-white by the unceasing glare of the sun, but the thought never crossed his mind. He was firmly preoccupied with the bottle of liquor at his side, nursing an amber glass of the stuff like it was his child. 

Since he hadn’t even bothered to close the door before attempting to drown himself in alcohol, it shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did when Hughes walked by, did a double-take, and angrily stormed in.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Roy asked. Or rather, had attempted to ask, but the words came out strange and broken. Speech sure wasn’t coming easy at the moment.

Hughes was saying something he couldn’t understand, and the world was fading to white. It blurred and melted like ice cream in the sun. Was this the booze, or something else?

Roy blinked, and suddenly, he was back in the basement.

It wasn’t clear how long he had been stuck in his flashback, but it was evidently enough time for something to click in the head of the thing before him. It was breathing quickly, too quickly, slowly nudging away in microscopic intervals. The memory of an Ishbalan child burst like a flashbang across his eyes.

Roy flinched.

The thing bolted back into the room. He could hear the sound of something scramble and clatter unevenly across the polished stone floor, thudding as it continually fell and tried to right itself, over and over again.

Fuck. The thing couldn’t even _walk_ correctly.

Ignoring the static boiling in his head, Roy stood. His legs felt like air and dust, and the rest of him wasn’t feeling too solid, either. His fingertips tingled wildly, a mixture of anticipation and fear running under his skin.

Okay. He could compromise for now. Investigate what happened, _then_ he could deal with that thing. With any luck, he might get fired up enough to finish the job. 

He breathed deeply, and spots flared in his vision. 

Huh. He must have been holding his breath without thinking.

At this rate, it didn’t seem like he’d ever be able to catch it again.

With leaden, deliberate steps, he moved into the room, hoping he would be able to leave with his lunch still inside of him. One foot after the next. Try not to think about it too hard.

The air was charged with something foul when he entered, a raw, invisible current that coated his mouth in blood and metal. Ominous burgundy stains mottled the edges of hairline cracks in the floor. The whole scene felt too recent, too liquid and moving. Wasn’t this the kind of thing that you stumbled across in abandoned facilities from bygone ages, remnants of profane dead practices? The lighting of the gas lamp was wavy and uncertain and destabilizing, and at the edges of his vision, curled into the corner, something trembled softly. Rocking, sawtooth shadows passed over it in uneven intervals, like waves trying to obscure it.

Later. Deal with that later. _Don’t think about it._

His gaze swiveled in the exact opposite direction, pausing when it caught something bright and silver gleaming on the ground, a rough sheet of metal. As he went over to examine it, he felt his throat constrict. He knew what this was, or had been.

_Automail._

Immediately his eyes shot upwards toward a table shoved in the nearest corner of the room. All across it, random bolts, wires, and plates had been cut and disassembled to the point of incoherence. He gagged as he saw chunks of flesh had been ripped out alongside them, as if the entire system had been surgically extracted. Roy didn’t know the first thing about automail, but a sympathetic shiver chilled his right arm and left leg.

A small journal rested in the center of it all, a sizable swath of the table’s surface cleared out for it and it alone. It was unlabeled, its leather expanse showing nothing but the cracks of age, but Mustang had a feeling he knew exactly what he would find within. Hands trembling, he lifted it from the table, and opened it up.

He wished his hunches would stop being so accurate.

Tucker had clearly been keeping this journal for a long time. Its earlier entries were barely even alchemy related, instead painting dull images of banal experiences in higher education and his struggle to get accepted into the state alchemy program. He described meeting and falling in love with his wife, their marriage, starting a family, his desperation after failing the exam for the third time… when Roy got to the part about his plans for a talking chimera, he quickened his pace.

He didn’t have to read the words themselves to see the shift as he raced through the journal. The book was now packed to the gills with page-to-page anatomical studies, violent passing thoughts, erratic pen strokes gouging paper with ink-bleeding wounds, and long, coded messages crawling haphazardly through the margins. The few scraps of information Roy could comprehend had a rough yet clinical style to them. Bored detachment hung over lurid depictions of horrors inflicted on his subjects, animal or otherwise. Yearning rawness lurked beneath it still, monstrous ideas wearing the skin of scientific curiosity.

As his trip back forward through time got closer to the present day, his turning slowed.

“ _3/15/10._ The recertification exam went… well, at this rate, I’m not going to make it past the next one. I could have made another talking chimera, but I didn’t know what I could have used as the input. I have one option, but I’d rather not resort to that, given all the complications involved.”

His little screeds burned with freezing euphemisms for atrocity. Roy’s eyes started to glaze over as the man hemmed and hawed, until he felt his heart slam into his throat like a train.

“ _6/8/10._ I’ve been told I’m responsible for the room and board of a potential candidate for the state alchemy exam, one Edward Elric. Naturally, I was less than enthused about the prospect, but once I confronted Colonel Mustang on the matter, I discovered he’s only a boy of about eleven years of age. Remarkable! How lucky of me to have such an opportunity dropped onto my lap.”

Despite the fetid heat burning the walls of the dark room, Roy felt colder than ice. He set the book flat on the table, because his hands had started shaking too badly for him to comprehend the words. His sharp breathing flared in his ears, cutting him like a knife. The acid of his nausea was starting to overwhelm him.

It took him more than a few seconds to compose himself enough to press on.

“ _6/10/10._ Imagine my shock when I discovered the boy had not one, but _two_ automail limbs! Edward has a brother as well, but it’s clear that one won’t be of much use, given that he appears to be a soul bound to a suit of armor. It’s obvious that they’ve attempted human transmutation before, but I’ve decided not to press the point for now. I need to gain their trust.”

Roy wasn’t sure he wanted to know why the man was so familiar with human transmutation. Reading further into the journal, one thing was becoming crystal clear. If Tucker was merely insane, it would have been impossible for him to have kept up such a convincing facade for the world, concealing his true intentions with practiced ease and honey-soaked lies. He knew exactly what he was doing, and was happy to do it. He was more of a monster than any of his chimeras ever would be.

“ _1/08/11._ It has become obvious to me that Edward will make a suitable subject, given a few modifications to the process to account for his missing limbs, naturally—”

 _Naturally._ The second Roy went back upstairs, he was going to beat the living daylights out of Tucker. Despite his best attempts to skip the details, morbid fascination hooked him into absorbing every word, even as he began to regret it with increasing intensity.

“—point of the original talking chimera was to create a proof of concept. Unfortunately, the need to hide the details of the input required me to over-emphasize the animal half, leading to a massive reduction in its capabilities. Moreover, the input wasn’t ideal; too old to adapt. Ideally, the chimera should be as human as possible in most physical aspects, but with an easily molded mind. Disposable soldiers, if you would. It—”

Mustang was finally able to tear his eyes away. Untold layers of doublespeak and euphemism had been peeled back before his eyes, and beneath it all was the stark white truth. It radiated pure toxicity, poison to his veins, and he was quickly losing his battle to avoid vomiting. 

There was one last entry before Roy could see another noticeable shift on the next page, ominously lurking below a slightly raised page corner jammed between his fingertips. Alarm bells began to clammer in his ears when he noticed the date.

Today’s date.

“ _3/25/11._ I think Edward is on to me. I’m not too worried—he likely still thinks the plan is to use Nina. Knowing him, he’ll attempt to confront me alone, given his not-unfounded distrust of proper military channels. Now that he’s moved out, he’ll have to come to me if he wants a confrontation. I think I’ve got all my bases covered. Is that a knock on the door?”

Knowing he would never, _ever_ be ready for what came next, Roy flung the page across, desperate to get this thing over with.

The first thing that caught his eye was sprawled at the top of the page, in big, neat letters.

"Observations?" Roy mouthed the word with a silent breath, his eyes slowing their scan as he was overcome by a feeling of illness. Given the time frame, Tucker couldn't have had time to record anything meaningful about—

He shook his head, mentally skipping past a phrase. Written under the header was a series of short, messy sentence fragments, scratched with reckless abandon onto the paper. The handwriting was atrocious, and to understand even a single word of it required several passes and a series of educated guesses.

None of it made sense, at first. Then he saw a name. Multiple names. Familiar names. _Roy’s_ name. 

Something in his head came violently unjammed, flooding him under the realization that the maniac had been _writing down Edward's pleas for mercy._

Roy finally lost the delicate balancing act he had been playing with his stomach. Bracing himself on the table, he threw up. From out of the dull cacophony of the chimeras, a small, pitiful cry of surprise echoed from the corner. Squeezing his eyes shut, he adamantly refused to look over. The image was seared well-enough into his brain. He didn't need eyes to see it.

Alchemists had a not-undeserved reputation for being unhinged. If you were lucky, you simply got pegged as the harmlessly eccentric type of crazy, like Armstrong, or maybe the sad sack, shell-shocked type of crazy, like himself. If you weren't, people assumed you were an amoral sociopath. Roy was well aware of the stereotype, but dismissed it as folk embellishment and superstition.

But now? Reading this journal was making him seriously reconsider his choice of career, and his life choices in general. Even working his way down the first few sentences was a monumental feat of endurance, causing his stomach to twitch at unnatural angles. If it hadn't already been emptied, it would have done so several times over by the time he had finished.

_Make it stop make it stop make it stop I won't do it again ——— [inaudible] it hurts it hurts please_

The testament to his failure was splayed in ink, bleeding out over the page for the world to see. He could have stopped this and he did nothing. All of this was his fault. His fault. 

_I'll do anything I'm so sorry Al I didn't mean for this to happen please I'm sorry_

_Mustang—_

Roy gagged. Seeing his name recorded in this mockery of a scientific experiment made him break out in hives, but more damning was what it meant for _Ed_ to be saying this.

Edward was resourceful, sharp as a tack. Give him an impossible situation, and he had already thought of about five ways to get out of it unscathed. He projected such an intense aura of invincibility that it was hard _not_ to get swept up in his promises that everything would be alright.

The question of why Ed went off on his own had nagged incessantly at the back of Roy’s mind ever since he had stormed out of the library. Ed’s “shoot first, ask questions later” philosophy was the default; he could be subtle if he wanted, but he normally needed a damn good reason for it. Now, though, Roy finally understood. The answer stretched out before him, a monolith of despair.

At the end of the day, Edward was _twelve._ He was a twelve-year-old boy who had put his trust in a father figure, only to have that trust violated beyond the point of comprehension. All of them were just dogs of the military ( _gag_ him), but one of those dogs had given him a home. One of them had given him family, safety, stability. Only one of them had seemed to go above and beyond the call of duty to care for Ed, make him feel like more than just a cog in a human machine. And it certainly hadn’t been Roy fucking Mustang.

No matter how much Ed might have denied it, Tucker was part of his family, and their confrontation had been destined to bring about that family’s destruction. Maybe somewhere, deep in his mind, he had hoped it wasn’t true. That maybe he could have talked sense into him. 

For his hope, his unwavering kindness, his unflinching, beautiful idealism, Ed was gifted a fate worse than death.

Following a deep, all-consuming pause, Mustang finally gazed into the far corner of the room.

The thing—no, _Edward_ —had curled up into himself, hugging his knees and shivering. The posture didn’t look quite right, like the boy couldn’t position himself correctly. Countless locks of golden hair snaked down and around his head like a halo, shielding his face as he assumed a twisted variation of a fetal position.

Closing his eyes, Roy took the deepest breath he could muster, and opened them once more. Turning himself towards the corner, he walked.

The sharp click of his polished black shoes on the stone floor cut through the air, and he could see Edward suddenly tense up, freezing in place. Refusing to slow his pace, Roy pressed forward. Every foot became a mile, and the basement faded away from his world as he marched. 

Ed still hadn’t moved an inch by the time Mustang reached the opposite side of the room. Now that he was closer, though, it was easy to see that the boy was anything but still. An endless shiver ran down his body, quaking like the air itself burned. Slowly, Mustang knelt down.

“Edward?”

Roy shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was at the sound of his own voice. It was both watery and crackling dry, angular and rounded, mangled and battered by a never-ending torrent of emotion that had been carving away at his composure for the last few hours. For a brief moment, he wondered if Ed recognized it at all.

At the sound of his own name, Ed made an odd twitching motion conveying something that Roy couldn’t pin down. Slowly, very slowly, his head lifted, the ocean of hair shifting in odd currents until a single golden eye peeked out from under the waves.

The world seemed to quiet around them both, the screeching chimeras growing into a distant murmur. The shaky, uneven breathing rocking the form of the boy in front of him seemed so much more urgent to his ears. Memory fragments rang through his ears, too loud to be real, but the strength of their suggestion too loud to ignore.

Throwing caution to the wind, he threw his arms forward, and wrapped the boy in a hug.

The physical sensation of it was strange. His body was warm, but _too_ warm, and the silky brush of fur seemed more like rusted barbed wire when contrasted with the more familiar touch of skin. It was more than a bit uncomfortable, but Roy didn’t care about any of that right now. It could have been real pain, and he wouldn’t have let go.

“Edward.” His voice was firmer now, but as gentle as he could manage, softly whispered into his ear. It was the sort of parental tone that didn’t come naturally to him, foreign on his lips, but there was nothing natural about this situation in the first place. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

He felt the scrutiny of a single visible eye wash over his skin. Patiently, he waited. The silence and rocking movement of the hug that passed between them was almost hypnotic, lulling Roy out of his thoughts until the fog was split by a single syllable.

“D…”

It had only been the faintest fragment of speech, but there was no doubt in his mind that it was Ed’s voice. The tone was wrong: too earnest, too slow, too soft—but it was _his._ Something else bothered him, too, lurking at the edges of thought.

“D… Don…”

Realization hit him like a sledgehammer, collapsing his heart as he recognized the tone for what it was.

He didn’t need language to know what Ed was trying to say. Emotion took meaning farther than words ever could. Despite how vanishingly quiet his attempts at speech were, they rang forward with unnatural power, knocking down the door to his soul.

_Don’t look at me._

When Hughes had slapped him, the unnerving rush of clarity had toppled him out of his ennui, yanking him roughly from the drowning haze of alcohol. His eyes widened farther than they had in weeks, and the senses he had spent so long dulling came bursting forth from the broken dam.

“What the _hell_ do you mean, ‘Don’t look at me’?!” Hughes grasped Roy’s collar tightly, pulling him upwards, as if trying to unstick him from the drying cement bath he had willingly entered. “Do you even understand how _worried_ we all are? How worried _I_ am?!”

The question rattled and skittered around the inside of Roy’s skull for a battered moment before he responded.

“Not really,” he slurred, shifting like mud in Maes’s grip as he slinked toward the ground. “I mean, why do you care so much what happens to me?”

The hand around his collar shook back and forth, as if attempting to throttle him. A foaming headache began to lather in his head, and he grimaced when the world began to stumble and tilt sideways.

“You’re such an _idiot!_ ” The hand released its grip, and gravity let him slide gently towards the ground. Hughes hand was balled up into a fist now, quivering brightly under the intrusive glare of the hallway light. The absence of his hand only served to emphasize a growing tension in the air.

Seeing his friend worked up into such a rage was setting off primal pins inside his intoxicated brain. Bracing himself for another slap, Roy squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth together.

It took his brain almost a minute to catch up to the fact that Hughes was kneeling on the ground, tightly embracing him in a hug. It was warmth. Not the chemically induced heat flush of liquor staining his cheeks, but _real_ warmth.

If Roy didn’t know any better, he’d have thought the blurriness in his vision was being caused by the alcohol. 

He didn’t know how long they were there, but when Hughes had finally left with a wordless goodbye, the sun was no longer peeking from behind the curtain. The rest of the bottle gleamed dark amber off the reflected hall light, but its promise had lost appeal. Shifting in place, he winced as joints popped and muscles protested from the exertion. He didn’t even fit right in his own skin, these days.

Roy still didn’t feel like living, but he didn’t want to die, either. Not anymore, at least. A sigh escaped his lips as he dragged himself from the floor in a delayed inertial wave, mouth noise muffled by his cotton-tongue. He slouched towards the bed for the first time in weeks. He had a feeling the hangover he had been dodging would be calling collect the next morning. Groaning, he sunk into his unwashed, unmade sheets. Smelled like vomit. ‘least he had his nightmares to look forward to.

Having people care about you hurt.

Roy was pulled from his recollection by an excessively loud metal scraping noise shattering his eardrums. Freeing his arms and wheeling around, he belatedly realized it must have come from upstairs. A strangled cry quickly followed it.

He frowned, his brow intently furrowing.

“Tucker?”

Who would—?

It hit him like an arc of electricity. He turned back toward Ed, who had retreated farther back into the corner after Roy had let go.

“Wait here.” 

Roy quickly stood and pivoted about, leaning to leave, but something hooked at his pant leg.

Given that Ed (apparently) didn’t have opposable thumbs, it was admirable how tight his clutch on the fabric was. Ed stared out from behind a curtain of hair, with an expression that sizzled with its glower.

“N…no.” 

Palpable frustration was buried in his voice, but the true object of his irritation was a mystery.

There was a whole world of meaning to be found in that gesture, but the time to unravel it was the one thing Roy didn’t have right now. He might’ve let Ed walk up with him, but given the… state… of his legs, that didn’t seem like a reasonable option. Experimentally, he tried a new approach.

“I’ll come back with your brother.” 

He didn’t have time to reflect on whether Ed released his grip out of understanding or shock. With as much speed as he could muster, Roy bolted out of the basement, practically flying up the steps.

The first thing that struck him was the darkness. The deep navy blue had progressed into black velvet, the inky, fuzzy shadows swallowing everything that stepped at their boundaries.

The second thing was the giant suit of armor, gleaming in pale moonlight, one fist raised over the limp form of Shou Tucker. The crimson liquid coating his metal glinted eerily, while darker red mottled cracked leather. A lone drop slid down its polished surface, falling away into the void.

Despite seeming perfectly still otherwise, it was hard to miss how his fist shook.

“Al, what—”

The helmet whipped towards him, the white fabric twisting about through the air. Supernatural white light carved a path through his soul.

“He told me.” The echo dutifully reflected his churning, shaking rage. “He told me what he did to my brother.”

A child’s voice shouldn’t have sounded so heavy. 

“Don’t kill him.” 

…and a colonel’s voice shouldn’t have sounded so tired. Funny how that had turned out.

Sparks bloomed within Al’s eyes. He directed all focus onto Roy, and for a solitary second, Mustang thought he was in the center of a sniper’s crosshairs.

“So you think he doesn’t _deserve_ this?” The even kilter of his voice flashed neon danger through the night.

Mustang felt his shoulders slump. Tucker glanced up from his place on the ground, a wicked and feral grin splitting his blood-lined face, and he felt them raise right back up.

“That’s right,” the man drawled, sunlight and cyanide spilling from his mouth. “Have to stick to protocol, right, Colonel?”

Roy glared liquid venom into his heart, making Tucker recoil. When his gaze shifted to Alphonse, it had been replaced by something softly sinister.

“All I said was ‘don’t kill him’. Having a state alchemist die under my command is a paperwork headache I don’t want to deal with.” There was an affected weariness to his voice, feigning boredom. Silently, Al nodded, savage recognition filling the air.

Before Tucker could reply, a well-angled kick was planted between his ribs by a sharp boot tip. Mustang noted it was the same spot he had broken the man’s ribs.

Atta boy. 

* * *

“Are you _sure_ he didn’t say anything else?”

Hughes rolled his eyes so hard he swore he sprained them. With a frown, he craned his neck around the car seat headrest to glare at Havoc. Having been forbidden from smoking in moving vehicles, the man had decided to act out a series of increasingly bizarre nervous rituals with a cigarette instead. If this ride went on any longer, Hughes worried he was going to start trying to eat them.

“ _Look,_ ” he shot back, voice coated in lead, “even if he did, my answer the last _eight times_ you asked was ‘no’. What do _you_ think I’m gonna say?”

Havoc’s hand ghosted over his pockets, lightly brushing over the location of his lighter.

“Yeah, well, I thought maybe you’d remembered something.” There was something sheepish in his glance as his head turned to stare out the window. The small white stick twirled absentmindedly between his fingers as he peered at the deadlocked traffic molasses.

“Watch where you’re spinning that thing,” Fuery muttered from the far side of the over-occupied vehicle, sandwiched between Falman and the door like a sardine. “You’re gonna hit someone in the eye.” The gap in his speech charged the air. “Again.”

Jean’s look of fake offense was muddied by a creeping trickle of real offense. “I already said I was sorry!”

Breda huffed. “It took you three tries to get the entire apology out because you were laughing so hard!”

“Yeah, but I still apologized, didn’t I!?”

“All of you.” Hawkeye shot a split-second glare into the backseat like a ray of light. “Please shut up. I’m trying to drive.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they murmured in toneless, rapid unison, slumping back into busied nothings.

Hughes felt his head recline, and the dark metal of the ceiling glared back at him. Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and sighed, the burning, wheeling machine of information clicking away in his head turning over the facts once more.

Through bits and pieces filtered through a game of telephone, consisting of profane rants shouted between various drivers on the road during their crawl through traffic, some idiot had been blazing through the streets at nearly double the speed limit. In the exact direction they were headed, coincidentally enough. Given how shaken Roy had sounded on the phone, combined with the hidden razor blades of urgency buried in his coded words, Hughes had a growing suspicion that there was nothing coincidental about their maniac driver.

Despite how much Roy might have wanted everyone to think otherwise, he was absolutely terrible at hiding his emotions. Sure, if you were unfamiliar with his tells, then he might seem like a natural born professional, stone-cold and aloof, but if you knew what to look for, he was like an open book. Those long silences spoke more than words ever could; those sidelong glares might have passed through empty air, but it was clear as day what he was really focused on. Idiosyncrasy had been encoded into his body language for years.

And yet, during that phone call, his voice had been shaking, like it had reached a breaking point and been forced past several times already. Real emotions, raw and unearthed under the winter sun.

Something was wrong. _Obviously._ The already lagging car ride was further dilated by time, until it felt like they had been entombed there for several days. I mean, shit, he could probably _walk_ there faster than traffic was moving, at this rate.

His foot drummed out a familiar rhythm as he continued his staring contest with the ceiling. From somewhere, a car horn blared, followed by another, and another. 

Well, they _were_ only about eight or so blocks from the Tucker residence, after all… sure, he wasn’t exactly in peak physical condition, or anything, but… 

Wordlessly, his hand reached for the handle of the door.

“Major Hughes.” Looking out the window meant he couldn’t see the glare of the driver boring into his back, but the curious feeling of a pinpoint of his uniform being set on fire was unmistakable. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Turning, he flashed a winning smile. Hawkeye looked unimpressed. He noted that even she had given up on paying sharp attention to the road.

“I thought I’d walk the rest of the way.”

Her expression didn’t change, and Hughes felt like his staring contest hadn’t really ended.

“Hey, that’s a pretty good idea,” Havoc called from behind. “Maybe we could both—”

“No.” Hughes and Hawkeye shot back as one.

Jean cowered back into his seat as the woman turned her attention back to Maes.

“…Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” she finally stated, uncharacteristic softness cushioning her voice.

He widened his grin. “Gee, thanks! I—”

Before Hughes could finish his beautiful expression of gratitude, there was a flash of polished metal and a quick clicking noise, and he was suddenly staring down the wrong end of a gun barrel.

“Get going. Now.”

She didn’t need to ask twice. He freed himself from the suffocating metal box, weaving through the standstill of purring engines and incensed drivers. Once he made contact with the sidewalk, he bolted.

Hopefully it wasn’t too late already.

Hughes didn’t slow down until the Tucker residence was in sight, its entrance partially illuminated by street lamps. Adrenaline coiled through his blood, and a thin layer of sweat intensified the freezing sensation lashing his skin. The inner surface of his throat and lungs were scraped sensitive, each cold breath slicing into his aching chest like a knife’s rhythm. Approaching the door carefully, he worked to push against the inertia of his runaway breathing.

Splinters of wood rested near the entrance, resting on the floor. Clearly, someone had broken the lock. What—?

A shock of movement glinted from within, and a sharp cry of pain split his ears. Strong bursts of wind howled past, chilling him to the bone. Peering inwards, he found himself staring into the not-quite eyes of Al. One of his fists was raised into the air, coated in mottled red. Roy was barely visible behind him, standing at the edge of the late twilight shadows.

“Major Hughes?” a boyish voice called, laced in emotion.

He didn’t reply at first, his attention seized by the crumpled form on the ground. It wasn’t recognizable as anyone he knew.

“Who is that?”

There was only a short pause before Al answered, but it felt like it lasted hours.

“Tucker.” His hard-edged tone shook with vivid darkness.

Hughes’s eyes widened. He looked back at the person laying on the ground. Were… were arms supposed to bend that way? Tucker looked like a puzzle of flesh. Blanching, Hughes turned his attention back to the two.

“…what happened?”

Al shifted in a flurry of scraping noise, and Roy grimaced, stepping forward.

“First of all,” Mustang began, shoulders hunched with an unnatural amount of tension, “where is everyone else?”

“They’re on their way. Traffic is awful. Apparently, some idiot had been recklessly speeding in the same direction we were going earlier in the day.”

Mustang’s expression was blank, showing no signs of recognition.

Yeah. It had been him.

“Anyway, I decided I would run ahead. Good thing I did, too, because…”

His eyes trailed briefly back to the broken form of Tucker splayed across the ground before returning to meet Roy, whose abyssal gaze had somehow sunken even deeper in the short moment he had looked away.

“What _happened?_ ”

A twitch raced across Roy’s features. When it settled, he looked even more out of sorts, a jumbled electric mess.

“Alphonse.” Mustang’s voice sounded about as authoritative as it was capable of being at the moment. Uneasily, Al looked in his direction.

“Colonel?”

“Can I trust you to…?”

The words died on his lips. Frowning, his focus unstuck itself, lost in a forest of thoughts only he was privy to. Finally, he shook his head.

“It’s not my place to hold you back.” There was something hanging in his throat, caught between two extremes. With great effort, he finally forced the words out.

“Edward’s waiting for you in the basement.”

Briefly, time stood still, with only the creeping ice of the wind to flow around them. Soundlessly, Al turned away from Tucker, proceeding down the stairs like a funeral march. Eventually, he had vanished below, the wisp of white fabric atop the helmet receding from view.

“Roy.” Hughes was standing still now, but his adrenaline kept spiking, his heartbeat accelerating. “Why is Edward in the basement? What’s going on?”

His friend only replied with a deep, belabored sigh. Roy dragged his feet toward the light switch, banishing the shadows with the click-turned bloom of a flame in a gas lamp, then dropped like a sack of hammers onto the couch, staring expectantly at Hughes. Despite the sudden influx of light into the room, darkness had barely released its hold over the scene.

“You might want to be sitting down for this.”

Fighting against the gripping feeling in his chest, Hughes complied, picking the spot farthest from the open door currently spewing freezing wind. In silence, he listened.

He listened until he couldn’t listen anymore.

* * *

Once Mustang had begun to talk, his mind had receded into numb, emotionless haze. He was already incapable of dealing with the situation as it was, and saying it out loud poured a steady stream of salt into his gaping wounds. The world around him was draped in mental fog, all of its details buzzed away by ever-shifting static and desaturation.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting from Hughes. Maybe he thought he would see his friend wrapped in the same shell of muteness he had been. 

It was a painful shock to have his world of cotton and sleep torn to shreds by the agonized wail of crying.

For a few disoriented seconds, he wasn’t even sure where he was, let alone able to understand what he was hearing. Once he saw Hughes doubled over, face buried in his hands, his attention was totally arrested.

“Maes?” he asked, voice swimming around a whisper. If Roy had been heard, it wasn’t showing.

His already rapidly fraying worldview began to quicken its unraveling momentum. Hughes had always been the stable one, the person he could always look to for reassurance and guidance. But now, as the sound of his wailing echoed harshly against the empty walls, Roy felt a tether he had been clinging to snap out of place. Totally, utterly lost.

This was still only an infinitesimal fraction of what Alphonse had to be feeling. He couldn’t afford to let himself lose it now.

It was a small miracle that Hughes decided to speak first.

“This…” His words came stutter-step, intruded by tears. “This is my fault, Roy. This is my fault.”

His voice was deadened, drowned in lifeless tears. Roy swallowed the lump in his throat, pushing himself forward.

“How the hell could you possibly consider this _your_ fault?” It wasn’t sitting right. Hughes wasn’t the type of person to needlessly blame himself, even in times of grief. So why…?

It took a few seconds for his friend to deliver a coherent response.

“Who do you think gave him that information about Tucker when the library wouldn’t?” The air burned like acid in its pause. “Me. I did. If it wasn’t for me…” 

The truth stuck him like a spear. No words passed through his busied mind racing the drain as he sat there, immersed in silence lightly intercut with hiccuping, choking sobs. 

Quietly, he carved out a small corner of his thoughts, slow-wheeled consideration moving his mind. The thing was impossible to reckon with, at first, but something clicked, and the path illuminated.

Standing up, he stepped softly towards his friend. He extended a hand, reaching outwards.

And slapped him.

Hughes bolted upright with a strangled cry, staring daggers into Roy, who felt them pass harmlessly through his body. No matter how sharp the glare, the only thing that registered was the tears prickling the corners of his eyes, the wetness on his face.

“Yeah. Maybe it _is_ your fault.”

An untapped wellspring of energy had been released from him. His friend looked on with wide, dumbfounded eyes.

“Maybe it’s my fault, too. Maybe _all_ of us are at fault.” Despite knowing Tucker was stone-cold unconscious, he shot a heated glare across the room towards his limp body, like a flare. “But what are you gonna do about it? Wallow in self-pity?”

Roy stood up straighter. Warmth radiated inside him, fighting against the winter air.

“Edward—no, _both_ of those brothers are going through hell right now. We need to take some fucking responsibility for what’s happening.”

Roy felt like he should have had more to say, but even his second wind petered out eventually. He stared at the floor, unable to meet his friend’s eyes. Another gust of wind rocked the walls, chilling the air temperature down another degree.

“…yeah.” 

In a languid motion, he shot a sidelong glance towards Hughes. The man was now standing by his side, with a grim, terse smile adorning his face.

“You know,” he started lightly, valiantly attempting to drag the mood up from rock bottom, “I never would have thought _you’d_ be lecturing _me_ on wallowing in self-pity.”

Roy snorted. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

Hughes walked toward the door, Mustang following behind. His friend eyed the busted lock before staring out into the dimmed streets, orange light spilling with gross incandescence across frigid concrete and grass. From afar, Roy swore he saw a snowflake dance through the ray of a street lamp before it vanished.

“They should be arriving any minute now.”

He was dreading having to explain it all again, but there was nothing for it. He kept his heart steeled, braced for the inevitable.

“How do you think those two are doing?”

Something in him had been expecting the question. Sighing, he folded his arms, rubbing them to work out the encroaching chill through friction.

“I mean, Ed is anyone’s guess.” A small stream of mist escaped his mouth. “But Al? I doubt he’s doing any better than I’d expect.” 

A chatter shook his teeth before he continued.

“I just hope he’s not doing any _worse,_ either.”

Inevitably, his mind wandered back to the basement, a black box to him once more. Sure, he could rush down there and see what was happening himself, but that wasn’t a moment he was meant to see. It was for the brothers, and the brothers alone.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t worry about them. He always did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :^)


	3. β Geminorum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has the dawn ever seen your eyes?  
> Have the days made you so unwise?  
> Realize, you are.
> 
> Have you walked on the stones of years?  
> When you speak, is it you that hears?  
> Are your ears full?
> 
> You can't hear anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (CW: Blood, Mentions of suicidal thoughts, Intrusive thoughts, Nightmares, Swearing)  
> Hello, all! I'm back with yet another chapter. I have to say, I'm absolutely blown away by the reception this fic has gotten. I love and appreciate every single person who has read, kudosed, or commented on it. I'm serious; being able to affect people with my writing is seriously incredibly moving. I hope this chapter is equally as "fun" as the last two. Now, without further ado...

When you want something badly enough, it’s hard to know what to do once it’s right in front of you.

The flung-open doors rested in a state of perpetual welcome, beckoning—taunting—Al, daring him to enter. All he needed to do was step forward, turn right, and his brother would be there. A step and a turn. Nothing simpler. The mystery had been cleansed from the scene in a burning acid bath; Al knew what he would find. One step. One turn.

There was an old saying about horrors of the imagination being more terrifying than reality. Once you could actually see something, they said, it became understandable, comprehensible.

Lies. All of it was lies. Spiraling anxiety trapped him into vicious descent through worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario, given life outside of thought. There was no reality to return to, no escape from the quicksand of his mind. This _was_ reality. A living nightmare from which Al would never wake.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Why him? Why _them?_

His armor, already clunky and inertial, was downright nonnegotiable, like several decades of rust had rapidly corroded the insides of his joints. He felt like the tin man from a children’s book he had read, years and years ago. Basic movement was now the fight of his life. If his arms weren’t refusing to cooperate, he would’ve punched a hole through the drywall.

One step. Lift one foot off the ground and put it in front of the next.

The familiar scrape and clang of metal, and he was next to the doorway. Open space yawned at his side, lashing the corner of his eye with an erratic movement. Was it candlelight, or something else?

Turn. _Turn, God damn it. Move!_

The internal tension became too much to bear. Mental blocks crumbled under pressure, and he swiveled towards the void.

Finally, he could see. In the far left corner, half-obscured by darkness.

His brother.

* * *

_His brother!!!_

That was his brother, it was he knew it was. He sure looked a whole lot taller now. It was even a little scary but that was okay it was his brother his brother would never hurt him. Things had been real scary for a while but finally they were together again. Ed smiled and his heart skipped a beat. It was hard to walk but that was okay his brother would understand. He reached out a hand. Paw? Hand. A hand towards his brother.

Everything was gonna be alright.

But why wasnt Al moving?

Maybe his brother couldnt see him. Yeah thats right that made sense. He was all balled up in the corner and stuff like a big coward. People always called him small and he remembered that made him real angry but maybe they were right. His brother was probably looking too far off the ground to even see him. If he said something his brother would know where he was.

When the colonel had asked him that question earlier Ed had really messed it up when he tried talking. He couldnt even get the first word out. Boy he must have really looked like an idiot huh. He hated when people looked at him like he was stupid and he didnt want people to start doing it even more so he was gonna have to do better now. He had practiced his brothers name a lot since he was waiting so he should be able to get it right. Eds head was all jittery but that didnt matter right now because his brother! His brother was here!

“Al!”

He said it good like he wanted! Al moved a bit so he definitely got heard too! Ed was so happy he managed to do it right that it took him a few seconds to noticed his brother still hadnt said nothing.

Maybe he didn’t say it right like he thought. He must have messed it up. Ed had practiced a couple of other things that had got realy stuck in his head too— _brother, sorry, I love you_ —but now he wasnt so sure they would come out right. 

Another thought appeared in his head from a place he didnt know. He remembered something.

Oh yeah thats right. His brother probably hated him after… after the thing he did. Why couldn’t he remember? He knew it was important but he had forgot it like the idiot he was. It was something he really really _really_ wasnt supposed to forget and he had gone and done it anyway. His brother was already probably angry with him for what he did and he let him down like a fool.

Now it made sense. His brother mustve gotten even more mad cause Ed forgot all that important stuff and now he was gonna kill him. Thats why he looked so scary now. That was probably also why he had all that blood on his hands cause his brother was about to do that to him to.

Ed really was an idiot after all.

Dying sounded kinda painful but he remembered thinking he deserved it for something so it probably had to happen. It would hurt a lot but everything was already kinda painful right now so that was okay. Hed try to make it real easy for his brother because hed do anything for him even if it hurt.

Al started walking over kinda slow until he was realy close. Ed remembered there had been some painful stuff what felt like a long long time ago now where there was a lot of pain and he had to stay still and be quiet. There were a whole lot of bright lights and metal and sharp objects. Kinda like here except instead of light it was dark. He remembered you wasnt supposed to tense up your muscle a whole lot so he went kinda limp and drooped into the corner.

His brother moved quickly and suddenly Ed was being held. He knew what was coming but he couldnt stop from looking up at his brothers face. He used to be real good at knowing what Al was feeling but now it was a lot harder and that made his heart achey. Somehow even though his whole body was in pain it was his heart that hurted the most.

Stupid. He didnt even know how to die right. It was so pathetic he was starting to cry.

“S…sorry.”

He moved his hands and started to hug his brother. It was very very selfish of him he knew that but Ed couldnt stop himself. It had always been real awkward hugging a big suit of armor but now he didnt even know where to move his hands right. 

“Sorry, Bro… ther…”

His body began to shake on its own even though he was trying as hard as he could. He didnt have a whole lot of control but even the little bit he did have was going away. Als arms moved around him suddenly and he took a sharp breath even though he didnt mean to. Any second now his brother would tighten the grip and crush his ribs or something and then everything would be gone. Any second. Any second at all.

Why wasnt it happening? Why wasnt he doing it? What was he waiting for?

It was scary. Ed didnt want to be alone again. All he wanted was his brother. But he loved his brother and if it made his brother happy hed leave.

“I’m so sorry, Brother. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He blinked and it took a few seconds to realize what he heard. Did his brother said that? Was he apologizing?

“Why?” 

Something in his blood made his tongue feel heavy. Even real easy words to say was coming out wrong sounding. His brother pulled him closer all quickly and he was a little scared for a moment but then he heard a noise. It started quiet but it got louder and louder and louder until his ears started to hurt.

It took him a second to remember what it was. Crying.

His brother was crying? 

He already knew there wouldnt be any tears or nothing but the sound was still loud and it was making him start to cry to. Too much this was too much he couldnt take it anymore. He didnt know how to handle it and everything he thought would help just made things worse why did it keep getting worse? What was wrong with him?

All he needed was one last chance to be good. He kept screwing up but he could get it right he just needed a bit more time.

“P…please.” He pushed himself into Als grip a little harder. It was weird how much it felt like a hug. “Do—don’t kill m…me.”

The crying got louder.

Of course Ed messed it up. What _hadnt_ he messed up realy. If Al didnt hate him before he sure did now. He deserved a big brother who could take care of him and make him feel better but he got stuck with this crummy one who just made him sad all the time instead. No wonder he was crying.

The pain and thinking about how much of a failure he were was making him so tired. The ad… adren— _adrenaline_ _thats the word_ had been helping keep him up but something else had kept telling him to go to sleep and it was getting harder and harder to fight. What a coward he was. His baby brother was right there crying and he was taking a nap. He really failed him this time. 

As Ed slipped unconscious he could only think one thing.

He must have been the most terrible big brother in the whole wide world.

* * *

Even if Al had lungs, he wouldn’t have been able to breathe.

Before, moving had been a challenge. Now he was doing all he could _not_ to move. Funny how everything worked out. Funny.

Al needed an outlet. He needed something to hurt and punch and _destroy,_ because no other actions or words could capture the free-wheeling directionless plunge of his chaos-addled mind.

He wanted to hurt someone for this. He wanted to _kill_ someone for this. His gauntlets ached for vengeance they couldn’t feel, coldly calculated retribution and irrational heat-rage melting into each other. Cackling chimeras wove the living background noise of static clouding his judgement.

But the only thing in his grasp was his brother. His brother, who thought he was going to be killed. His brother, who, even now, only cared about Al. Nothing Tucker did could ever muddy Al’s understanding of Ed, and even in the darkness of the basement it was clear as day what his brother was feeling.

Guilt. He felt guilty. He had been _used_ by the man they had once considered a surrogate father, and Ed blamed _himself._

He was stuck at the bleeding edge of two extremes. He needed a moment to stop and think, but without a body, emotion just seemed to pool and gather within him endlessly, screaming for release Al could not provide.

Another noise, barely audible, yet the only thing that could have cut through his torrential thoughts. His brother shifted in an unnatural sleep, sliding around under Al’s grasp. The blood on his armor hadn’t dried, and even now was smearing, staining his brother’s… _fur._

Al was only barely aware of the fact that he was still crying. His senses remained disconnected from each other, like he had fallen apart but refused to die, a collapsed pile of a person. A tin man without a heart.

A short chitter. His brother shivered.

It was a testament to how scattered his mind was that he only just realized Ed wasn’t wearing any clothes. 

Gently, like a piece of fragile glass, he lay his brother on the floor, and began to look for something to cover him. 

He clung to the absurd task like a lifeline, reaching for something he could understand. Something cynical and heartless in him said Ed’s modesty was the last thing he should be worrying about, but he stamped it down with an angry sob. Every human being deserved decency, and his brother was human. He _was,_ no matter how much doubt was growing in the pessimistic part of his mind. Al wished he could say he kept the thoughts at bay out of the goodness of his heart, but it was a much more selfish and rational defense that gripped him.

After all, if humans were defined by their bodies, what did that make him?

A familiar shock of red flared in his vision, a magnet for his attention. Moving closer, he recognized Ed’s clothes, neatly folded and laid out to the side. The normalcy of it all made them appear superimposed in his vision.

Hands trembling, he picked up the crimson coat from the pile, watching as it waved through the air from the momentum. The black leather getup was a lost cause; there was no way it would fit him now. Al used to think it was an eyesore, a source of second-hand embarrassment, but his heart now longed for it. Funny how that worked. Funny how context flipped everything on its head.

He gently draped the cloak over Ed, and his brother’s shivering dampened. If it wasn’t for the tail poking conspicuously out of his lightly swaddled form, he’d have thought nothing was wrong. When he hoisted Edward into his clumsy, unfeeling arms, an unconscious hand extended, lightly brushing against his chest. It may as well have driven a dagger into his heart.

His tearless sobs were slowing in intensity and frequency, but the familiar catharsis of a good cry was nowhere to be found. No resolution. Nothing left but the tin man and the cowardly lion.

All his grief over his lost body seemed like so much nothing, somehow. At least his mind still worked. At least he couldn’t feel physical pain. His focus reshaped and narrowed into a white-hot cause in his burning heart, smelted to crystal clarity. A life’s goal rewritten in less than an instant.

Al was going to get his brother’s body back if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

Eventually, a familiar flash of headlights, signaling a secret code to his eyes alone, broke the veil of night from somewhere down the road. Roy felt his heart plummet in sync with the approaching glide of the car.

“They’ve arrived,” Roy said, raising his voice.

Hughes, who had been busying himself restraining Shou Tucker and documenting whatever looked like evidence, made a noise of acknowledgement somewhere farther back in the house. Shifting around, Mustang realized staring out into the freezing night for God knows how long had left his face feeling totally numb. The sudden onset sensation of being disconnected in his own body was the cherry on top of the already uncanny scene he had become embroiled in. His hands had been about five seconds from turning the Tucker residence into charcoal for the past several hours, and that timer wasn’t ticking backwards any time soon.

When the car finally pulled up, he was impressed to see four people hop out of the backseat. Once things settled down in about a century or two, he’d have to ask them how they pulled it off. It likely required more than a bit of help from Hawkeye, or more specifically, her brandished gun.

As Havoc approached, taking the lead, he briefly wondered if he had been able to maintain his professional appearance.

“Hey—” The cigarette he had eagerly lit fell out of his mouth, doused when it landed in the grass. “Boss, what happened?! You look like shit!”

Well, that answered that. He entertained the idea of an insubordination charge, but shelved it after deciding he couldn’t prosecute the truth.

“Really.”

It wasn’t a question. Roy took a few steps back to let the clown car brigade shuffle into the house, realizing as they passed that he hadn’t actually thought of a way to break the news to any of them. Given how his trial run with Hughes had gone… maybe he could convince someone else into giving the account for him.

Hawkeye, who had taken the rear, paused in the door frame.

“Sir.” She shot a piercing glance through Roy, lifting her gun towards her chest, “why is the lock broken?”

Defensively, he raised his hands.

“I was in a hurry.” He paused. “I had reasonable suspicion that something horrific would occur or was occurring at that very moment.”

Hawkeye’s glance slid around the room, halting noticeably longer when she caught sight of Tucker’s brutalized form lying across the floor. Hesitating, she looked back at him.

“…and did you make it in time?”

Roy paused for far longer, breathing deeply.

“No.”

There was a barely perceptible hiss of breath. Her face hadn’t moved, but Mustang could see the gears frantically turning behind her eyes.

“Where are the boys?” she asked, holding the gun ever closer.

Roy’s gaze involuntarily moved toward the basement, and Hawkeye began to pace forward in turn.

“Wait.”

She froze, glaring back at him. Roy flinched, but held his ground.

“I…I wouldn’t go down there right now.” He was lightly fidgeting with his gloves now, a nervous habit that he’d thought he’d stamped out years ago. Riza’s pointed look showed it wasn’t going unnoticed. “The situation is more complicated than you might expect.”

The safety clicked. “Then explain.”

Five people were now staring at him. Hughes ghosted around the back, a wince grazing his face before ducking out of sight again. Roy had been left out in the cold, literally _and_ figuratively. So much for his ‘get someone else to do it’ plan.

Well, he _had_ said it was time to start taking more responsibility…

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Roy began, holding down the urge to start pacing a hole into the floor as his gloves itched nervously, “what happened here is a crime against humanity.”

The explanation wasn’t any easier the second time, despite his faintest hopes. Having a larger audience made it more difficult, if anything, and his momentum constantly halting for everyone to take breaths of fresh air outside wasn’t helping.

Not that he blamed them. Not in the slightest.

Through a minor miracle, Roy found himself at the end of the story with everyone in one piece, at least physically. Havoc had burned through half a pack of cigarettes, and there was a collective web of sickness and unease spread throughout the assembly, but Mustang would honestly be more concerned if any of them _weren’t_ shaken up.

“…and that’s about it.” When he had finished, Roy was finally free to tear his gaze from the group. Incessant explaining had run his voice ragged and dry.

Yeah. Sure. The _talking_ is what did him in. That was his story and he was sticking to it. It was a mixed blessing that he felt too tired to start crying again.

Nobody spoke. Not for lack of trying, though. Occasionally, one of them would open their mouth, but the motion would give way to hesitation, and it would close right back up. The tension in the air froze time, like this night would never end, which was half-true, in a way. Roy had the feeling this house would be a prominent feature in his nightmares from now on.

Even though it had been hours since he left, he was still stuck in the basement.

A few uncounted minutes ticked by, until finally, there was a voice.

“What are you going to do now, Sir?”

Leave it to his First Lieutenant to be on top of things. Mustang, who had barely given the future a passing thought, didn’t hesitate to answer.

“I’m going to make sure those boys are safe. I can’t let the military—or anyone else, for that matter—get their hands on them. I’ll hide them at my house, if I really need to.”

As soon as he finished the statement, he mentally went on the defensive, ready to meet any verbal counterattacks head on. Roy knew it was a hasty, emotionally charged decision, but there was nothing else he _could_ have decided. He wasn’t budging, and nobody was going to change his mind.

A few seconds passed, then a few more. He glared defiantly at his team, almost daring them to respond. Nothing.

He frowned.

“None of you are going to try to talk me out of this?” he asked, gaze hopping between them all.

“With all due respect, sir,” Hawkeye started, “I had thought you’d given us more credit than that.” It took all the willpower he had not to wither to dust under her stare. Emboldened, Breda advanced.

“All of us care about those boys just as much as you do, Boss.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help them…” Fuery continued, his voice uncharacteristically firm, “…I’ll do it.”

Falman nodded. “All of us would.”

Havoc pulled out another cigarette, crushing the last one underfoot.

“The situation is fucked.” He lit the cig, taking a long drag. “But we’re a team, and those boys are a part of it. What would we be if we _didn’t_ help them?”

There was a spark in their eyes now, driving back the creeping darkness that had been there before.

It was like their hearts were slowly rekindling their fire. The apprehension was still there, but something else had emerged, holding it back and waving a torch through the fog of uncertainty. For the first time in hours—though it felt like years, at this point—Roy’s feet were steady on the ground. He had found some stability.

“Glad to see there isn’t an issue.” He awkwardly adjusted his collar, and though he tried, he wasn’t able to stop the tiniest scrap of optimism from sticking to his voice.

Hughes soon returned, holding a small glass bottle in his hand. Inside were tiny, pure white crystals, resembling table salt. The queasiness marring his face betrayed the true nature of its contents.

“I found this in the kitchen.” He held it up higher, shaking it for emphasis. “Roy, do you know what this is?” 

“I might, if you stopped shaking it.”

Hughes frowned, but his hand stilled.

“Unless you’ve done any medical research in the past few years, I doubt it. This is barbital.”

The name held no significance to Roy, or to most of the rest of them, given the mild confusion running through the room, but Falman blanched and recoiled. The group looked at him expectantly.

“Ten to fifteen grains of the stuff is enough to knock someone out.” His voice shook as he recited the information. “A lethal dose is barely over fifty. Why would he have that lying around his kitchen?”

Hughes’s face darkened.

“I thought the same thing, so I looked around a bit more.” From his other hand, he produced a small teacup. Its handle was cracked and chipped. “I found this in the sink. There was a crystalline, powdery substance lining the inner surface. I’ll need to run some tests, but…”

“Oh.” You could have cut someone on Roy’s voice.

He had been wondering how Tucker managed to subdue Ed. He hated how _…logical_ the whole affair seemed. How could so much thought and planning have gone into something so incomprehensibly evil? His revulsion, which had barely started to recede, redoubled over a sudden observation.

“Hughes, don’t the Tuckers have a family dog?”

Hughes blinked. “What?” 

His friend’s surprise quickly morphed into something mirroring the feeling in Roy’s own heart.

“Now that you mention it…I haven’t seen Alexander around…” He was quickly going from being merely pale to looking as white as a sheet. “Let me check something.”

He disappeared from view again, leaving the rest of them to hang on bated breath. When Hughes finally returned, there was something unnervingly grave in his posture.

“I checked the dog bowl. There’s…it’s the same type of residue." Forget being white as a sheet; Hughes looked like he was on the brink of fainting. "Roy—"

“Please stop talking for a second,” he cut in. “I need to think.” 

It didn’t take much convincing to get Hughes to shut up. 

They had been drugged. Roy doubted it was the only method Tucker had employed to try to keep Ed and Alexander restrained long enough to transmute them, but in all honesty, he hoped he’d never have to learn about any of them. How much of it was still in Ed’s system right now? Had _that_ been what was causing him to act so sluggish? The same sluggishness he had deemed inhuman, ready to murder a child over?

That wasn’t a train of thought Roy was ready to go back down right now, or _ever,_ really. He tucked it back into a far corner of his mind, promising to unearth it on some dark, rainy day. Not like he had much of a choice. No matter how hard he tried, it would always claw its way up in the end.

The heavy silence was only broken by the even heavier sound of moving metal, lumbering below them. Al had never been the fastest mover, but the pace being set below them was sub-glacial. Instinctually, Roy made to move towards the stairs, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Hughes holding him back.

“You need to take a break.”

Mustang wanted to argue, but words were starting to fail him. His shoulders slumped in realization of his friend’s point.

“…fine.” He took a step to the side, allowing Hughes to pass him.

It was unbecoming of a leader to be unable to actually lead. The amount of work they needed done was unimaginable, and he had only begun to struggle with a single piece of the puzzle. It would be a logistics nightmare to untangle, sure, but he’d rather his nightmares be logistics-based than the many, many, _many_ alternatives he had available.

Five people stood before him, all awaiting orders. He cleared his throat. First thing’s first, they had to figure out what to do with Nina. Al, during his brutalization of Tucker, had explained that Nina was hiding upstairs, at Ed’s request, apparently. Of course he had gone and played the hero.

“Alright,” he began, projecting his voice. “Havoc, Breda.”

They saluted in unison.

“I want Tucker in jail yesterday. Call someone in and drag him out front. If they try to come in, tell them this case is under our jurisdiction.”

It was something that seemed too obvious for words, but Mustang had the feeling something vile was underfoot when it came to Tucker’s work. In particular, Basque Grand probably wouldn’t be too happy about how things were playing out. The occasional overstepping of boundaries when it came to things like this was common and accepted among most of the military, but right now, Mustang wasn’t willing to budge an inch.

“Yes, sir,” came the hurried reply, but before the two hurried off, Roy raised a hand, stopping them in their tracks.

“I know I said ‘as soon as possible’, but not yet.” He closed his eyes, turning the facts over in his mind. “If I know Grand, even if you tell him no, he’ll try to linger around outside the house, trying to bully me into letting him in. I won’t, of course,” he said, daring the feign confidence, “but it’ll be that much harder to sneak Edward out if he and his goons are watching us like a hawk.”

“Doesn’t the military information network already know Ed is here?” Fuery’s brow was slightly furrowed, the tension in his eyes magnified in the lenses of his glasses. “How are you going to explain why he’s suddenly disappeared?”

“We’ll…” Roy paused, taking a deep breath to push back nausea. “We’ll just have to say he died. Kill one of the chimeras down there for evidence, if you need to.”

A sharp collective gasp sliced through the room before smoothing out. It wasn’t the most elegant solution—downright barbaric, really—but elegance was a luxury Roy couldn’t afford. He had managed to answer one question, at least.

One down, several hundred to go.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

Hughes had never been very fond of Tucker as a person, let alone his work.

He had already clocked him as having a sort of creepy, spectral energy buzzing around him from the moment they first met, even if the man had seemed pleasantly harmless at the time. Once Hughes had begun doing research into his past… what had started as baseless suspicion suddenly had a bit more base to it. Still, though, with everything he had to be on top of at all times, and a lack of anything more than hearsay, he had let it slide. A harmless decision, or so it had seemed at the time.

Everyone knew the old saying about hindsight, but it was hard not to get wound up about the whole thing when the context was now staring him dead in the eyes.

It didn’t take long to catch sight of Alphonse, and it didn’t take much longer than that to see he was holding something in his arms in a bridal carry. Any quickness to his pace died when he realized the true nature of the small red bundle.

That signature blood-red coat was wrapped around him, hiding most of his body from view. His head was cradled inwards, resting against the chest of his brother as he slept, or was _hopefully_ sleeping, not what the cruel thought swirling below the surface of his mind was suggesting. In either case, his eyes were closed, and his blond hair danced and swirled over gleaming metal. Something that only resembled an arm reached out of the blanket, lightly pawing _(bad word choice bad word choice)_ at the chestplate.

As Hughes approached, he felt his heart soar with bittersweet relief to see Ed’s chest rise and fall. Alive. He was alive. Hurt, but alive. Somehow, a single strand of hair stuck like a lightning rod atop his head, an antenna perpetually defying gravity.

Ed always had been stubborn.

Even with the impossible-to-miss sight of a white-gold tail drifting through the air, there was something so familiar and _normal_ in the way he slept.

Al said nothing as he got closer, but the gaze coming at him cut a hole through Hughes’s chest. It was impressive how much emotion he could get a suit of armor to project. No matter how innocent things seemed now, he doubted whatever went down in the basement was so pure. The blood had been wiped from the gauntlets, but there was still an unnerving pink sheen around the metal of his hands.

“Al?” he called. The boy’s silence was putting him more than a bit on edge.

“Hello, Major.” The reply was mumbled, barely audible over his ever-present echo, but Hughes had experience deciphering him.

“Do you…” Hughes faltered, wondering how to proceed. Asking if the boy was okay would have been insultingly, _patronizingly_ aggravating. But he couldn’t just stay silent, either. A few moments turned before he came to a decision. “Do you want me to help?”

“What?” The reply sounded offended, but the offense was pared down, exhausted and toothless. “Help me with _what?”_

“…I don’t know,” Hughes admitted, his words tumbling out on their own, “ _anything._ Anything at all that you think could help. I just…” 

Hughes was completely lost for words. Was this how Roy felt during _every_ conversation? Poor bastard.

“I just want to be able to do something.”

After what felt like years, Al responded.

“I’m sorry,” he replied heavily. “Sorry, Major Hughes. I’m… it’s just a bit hard for me to think right now.”

His voice was unbearably raw. 

Al readjusted his grasp, causing Ed to shift slightly and let out a noise landing somewhere between a gasp and a murmur. Something nagged at Hughes, a small thought he had discarded, until it hit him.

That’s right. The plan.

“The Colonel wants to take both of you into his temporary custody. Well, more like Ed, but I would presume that includes—”

_“What?!”_ The shock in Al’s voice wasn’t dimmed by the same fatigue that had muffled his anger. Before he could continue his tirade, Ed groaned and nuzzled deeper into his brother’s grasp, giving them both pause.

“Why?” he continued in a softer tone. “What does he want from us?”

“He doesn’t want anything. It’s for your safety.”

“…why does he care so much?” Wariness skirted the edge of his statement, challenging Hughes, who was too busy having his heart shatter to be intimidated. The man sighed as his fingers twitched nervously. He wished he had a pen or a phone cord or _something_ to unwind his nerves.

“Does he need a reason?” He probably shouldn’t have sounded so exasperated, but this whole thing was getting to him. “I don’t think anyone could see what you two have been through and _not_ want to help.”

The silence was deafening.

_“…fine.”_

The word had practically been hissed out, ringing through the hall. 

“I…we don’t really have any other options right now.” Hughes could hear the edge of desperation in his voice. “But if he tries to do _anything_ to Ed—”

“If he does anything to Ed, I’ll be right there with you to box his ears,” Hughes cut him off.

The noise Al made didn’t sound very convinced, but it was enough. The boy curtly nodded his head, staring even more fiercely at Hughes. The air was charged with finality.

“Are you two ready to go?”

“What about Nina?”

Oh, right. In the chaos, he had completely forgotten about Tucker’s daughter. Some information specialist _he_ was.

“We were thinking about letting her stay at my house for the time being,” Hughes replied, folding his arms. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

Al peered at the ground, his non-expression completely opaque.

The night felt like it would never end.

* * *

Mercifully, the Colonel didn’t make them linger for much longer. Al could see the rest of the team—his brother’s coworkers—trying their best not to look at them, but it was blindingly obvious that their best wasn’t enough. He kept catching them gawking out of the corner of his vision, only to hurriedly look away like nothing had happened when he turned. He couldn’t blame them, but each stolen glance stoked the burning embers of anger heating his heart.

Mustang had briefly gone over the plan with him—Havoc and Breda would handle the arrest, Fuery and Falman would be responsible for taking care of Nina the rest of the night, Hughes would stay behind at the Tucker residence to both investigate and “take care” of any evidence that might suggest the whereabouts of his brother, while Hawkeye and himself would be escorting them to wherever it was he lived. Al realized he had never even imagined the Colonel having a house, let alone what it might look like. For some reason, he pictured the man living in his office, which probably wasn’t too far from the truth.

Strangely, the Colonel had briefly gone back to the basement to pick something up, returning with a leather-bound journal.

“What’s that?” Al asked.

“Tucker’s notes.” Sensing the anger steeling itself in Al’s posture, he defensively raised his hands.

“I don’t want the military to get their hands on them. And…” Mustang seemed to hesitate before replying. “And I was thinking something in them might be able to help your brother.”

Al sank just as quickly as he had risen. Ed continued to sleep peacefully in his arms, blissfully unaware of anything. According to Hughes, his brother had been drugged by Tucker, along with Alexander, who was nowhere to be found.

If the Colonel hadn’t forbidden it, and if he didn’t feel so inclined to listen to his conscience, Al would have throttled the man as far past the last inch of his life as he was able.

Out of concerns that the seeping freeze of the outside air would chill into Al’s armor and potentially hurt Ed, they managed to scrounge up a larger blanket to wrap him up in. It was a sickly-sweet pink cherry red, an ugly thing that Al remembered his brother had mocked on more than one occasion. He wondered if he would even notice anymore.

When they had finally left that fucking house— _sweet, burning freedom_ —and gotten in the car, Hawkeye had insisted on driving, which the Colonel meekly acquiesced to. Mustang had taken the passenger seat while Al had taken the back; Not only out of necessity, but because he wanted as much space as he could get. The only person allowed to be close to him right now was Brother. Nobody else. _No one._

The ride was almost painfully uneventful, a dead winter's quiet interspersed with Edward's soft whimpering. A few snowflakes spun through the air until they met their unceremonious end on the windshield. Al used to love snow, but without feeling, it was nothing but white ash. Darkness had roughly cloaked the interior of the car, with only a dim overhead bulb warding off its approach. It was the kind of peace that gripped your heart and made your fingers numb.

The Colonel finally spoke, rupturing the fragile silence. 

“I’ll get someone to pick up your belongings from the dorm, Al.” He was staring out the window, face unreadable. “I know you two only had a few suitcases worth of stuff, but…”

As they passed by a street lamp, a reflective gleam rolled across the surface of a silver pocket watch, abandoned on the dash. He was roughly struck by the sight, and abandoned memories from earlier in the day came unlodged.

Talking to the Colonel. Laughing with him. Laughing about _Ed._ Oh, how silly his Brother was. He was always doing something stupid. And he had been there, _been there,_ could have _done_ something to help his brother, but both of them left. They abandoned him when he needed them most. The context painted it all in blood.

The spiral of recollection overwhelmed him, and he would have started to sob again until he hit a mental brick wall that sent him flying off in the opposite direction.

The Colonel’s gift.

“A dog collar,” he said out loud, voice deadly even. Hawkeye, of all people, briefly tore her eyes from the road to stare at him.

_“Excuse_ me?” she asked, glaring daggers through his metal shell.

Mustang had buried his face deeply within his hands, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his legs. The muffled groan that ensued couldn’t be cleanly identified as any emotion Al had ever experienced.

Not for the first time, Al seriously wondered if God hated them.

It was almost unnerving seeing the woman before him look so caught off-guard.

“Sir, what is he talking about?” She stole a glance at Mustang in a stretch of empty road.

“…how could I have known…seemed like a great idea at the time…” Clipped sentence fragments, distantly pleaded to nobody, were the only thing the man offered. He had started to rock a bit in place, as if trying to lull himself to sleep and out of the situation entirely.

Hawkeye had turned her eyes back to the road, but the tension in her stance was palpable. 

“This is a discussion for later.”

Mustang flinched. If it were anyone else, Al might have felt a pang of sympathy. But it wasn’t, so he didn’t.

* * *

His house was dark and empty and cold.

The mansion was just a status symbol, but the ostentatious size felt like more of a hassle than anything else. Hell, he barely even used the master bedroom for anything—he found himself sleeping on the couch more days than not.

As the door swung open with a loud, echoing crash, the weight of the place felt like it tumbled down on him, crushing the air from his lungs.

“…you actually _live_ here?”

Al sounded more than a bit stricken, wildly glancing about the entrance way. It was sometimes easy to forget the boys were born and raised in a microscopic rural community.

“If you think this is bad, you should see how the generals live.” Roy could appreciate a nice house as much as anyone, but all of that marble just made it seem like you were living in a tomb.

Hesitantly, Al proceeded, the clacking of his boots bouncing harshly off the walls. Hawkeye followed, closing the door behind them. It was only after they had been plunged into total darkness that Roy realized he had forgotten to turn the lights on.

With a snap of his fingers, the overhead lamp ignited, blossoming into a light, golden flame. He closed his eyes, smirking faintly. No need for applause.

“That seems kind of unnecessary…”

“You could have just used the light switch, sir.”

His mouth dropped into a frown, and he barely restrained the petulant urge to stomp his feet. Talk about raining on his parade. It was cool to him, God damn it. He couldn’t even finish his silent pity party—or temper tantrum, _uncharitably_ —before it was derailed by the sound of Ed muttering under his breath.

“…Al…” he breathed dreamily, turning slightly in his brother’s grasp.

“Brother?” Al’s voice was high and unstable, shaken to the core. 

Ed didn’t reply, smiling faintly.

“You should probably get him to an actual bed.” Hawkeye’s tone was firm and warm and gentle as she moved in Al’s direction. The boy didn’t reply at first, continuing to cradle his brother absentmindedly.

“Yeah…yeah, I guess I should…” he said, voice still shaking.

“The master bedroom is up the stairs at the end of the hall,” Mustang interjected.

It took a few seconds of Al staring at him quizzically to realize what the problem was.

“Don’t worry about me.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll just sleep on the couch, or something.”

“Yeah, but…” Al hummed, putting a hand under his chin. “But it’s still kind of weird to suggest he sleep in _your_ bed.”

An ocean of implications begged to be drawn from that, and Roy chose to ignore all of them.

“If it really bugs you that much, just use the guest bedroom. Take a left, and it’s two doors down.” Roy jabbed a thumb in the direction of the staircase, which stood at the back left of the entranceway.

With a silent nod, Al hurried up the stairway, vanishing into the small maze’s worth of lacquered wood-paneled walls, bottle-green carpets, and ornate glass windows Roy called his house. As he watched, a beleaguered sigh of exasperation sounded behind him.

“Now that he’s gone…”

There was the click of a safety being undone, and Roy felt a cold metal object being pressed into the back of his head.

“Mind elaborating on that _dog collar_ Alphonse mentioned in the car ride over? _Sir?”_

Fuck.

His hands moved into the universal signal for surrender, his left hand still clutching the book.

“I can explain—”

“Then start explaining,” she harshly interjected, jamming the barrel of the gun into his skull again. That was going to bruise.

A long night, indeed.

* * *

Al was having a hard time believing someone actually lived here.

Putting aside the way the halls seemed to spin on and on, branching off into room after room that defied being assigned purpose, everything felt too…impeccable. It wasn’t immaculate—a thin layer of dust lightly powdered every third surface he saw—but any signs of being lived in was absent. All aesthetics, no practicality. The Tucker residence, though its memories now chilled him to the core, was pointlessly big as well, but one only had to see the rogue crayon smearings and earnest drawings lining the walls to know someone was loved. _Had_ been loved.

He shoved away thoughts of Tucker and Nina. Not right now.

The whole atmosphere of the place was strange, angling deep within him, yet not unfamiliar. Everything precisely plucked emotional chords and presented to match an ideal of what a home _should_ look like, yet never did. The chestnut brown wood walls swaddled the place in warm darkness, playing perfectly against the blue moonlight peering through the windows. Longing—for what, Al couldn’t say—stirred in his heart, a feeling which vanished when he tried to reflect upon it, as if he was playing hide-and-seek with his emotional state.

Following Mustang’s instructions, he glided into a room on autopilot.

The same pine-colored carpet going down the center of the halls spread across the entirety of the floor, a small patch of it illuminated near a high window on the far wall. The headboard of the neatly made bed was pressed up against the center of the left wall, adorned on either side by two bedside tables, maintained but never used. A dresser rested against the other wall. In the back, a mirror shone, a strip of light playing off the polished surface illuminating their reflection.

Despite lacking a body, Al suddenly felt so, _so_ tired. As delicately as he could, he lay his brother on the bed. He was glad to finally pull the sheets over his body, temporarily ridding his eyes of the sight of his _animal features._

The acidic phrase tore through, corroding Al’s emotional stability once more. He shook his head, trying to shake the thought away as he took a step back from Ed’s sleeping form.

_You can’t keep running from it forever, you know._

Shut up. Shut. Up.

Eventually, his brother would wake up and start moving around. Then what? What was Al going to do?

Forget living day-to-day. It felt like every hour brought forth a whole new collection of horrors to work through. Sullenly, he walked over to the far wall, firmly sitting down against it, careful not to scrape the wall with his metal body. He huddled inwards, holding his knees.

Another long night. He didn’t know if he was glad for it or not. He looked toward the window.

The bright full moon gazed down on all of them. Al wouldn’t be able to do any meaningful stargazing from here: too much light pollution, bad viewing angle, window too small. At the very least, he could simply watch it crawl an arc across the night.

The moon had only moved about a centimeter or so when he heard a noise from the hall. He turned to see Mustang standing in the door, a suitcase held in each hand, his attention glued to the sleeping figure on the bed.

Strange. The Colonel going out of his way to check in on them didn’t seem in character. Mustang shuffled awkwardly in place, coughing unconvincingly before speaking.

“Hawkeye asked me to see how you two were holding up.”

Oh. Al looked down at the ground, unable to meet the man in the eyes.

There was a gentle sigh, and something was placed on the carpet nearby, followed by muted footsteps. Mustang was sitting by his side now, also glaring at the ground.

“…do you, uh…” He faltered. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Al couldn’t recall another time when he had seen so much concentrated social awkwardness in one place. Part of him wanted to tell the man, “No,” or less politely, “Go away,” but another part of him pushed back against the urge. Childish as it may have been, he wanted to believe there was still someone worth trusting in the world. Maybe he didn’t have to be so heartless, after all.

“Colonel?” Al tucked his knees a fraction closer to his chest as he turned his head towards him. “Can I ask you something?”

Mustang nodded stiffly. The moonlight washed away any color in the scene, making the room look ghostly in the pale blue light.

“When something…”

He almost trailed off before redoubling, pushing forth. “When bad things happen, do you ever think…”

Al stopped for a moment, trying to collect his scattered thoughts. Why did words always become so scarce whenever they mattered?

“Do you ever get scared of your own thoughts?”

Slowly, the man met his gaze. Decades of exhaustion dragged down his eyes.

“All the time, Al,” he replied wearily, sinking against the wall, “all the time.”

He turned to watch his brother’s sleeping form, focusing on the way his chest steadily rose and fell under the blanket. Even from across the room, it warmed him.

“Can you keep a secret, Colonel?”

There was a shifting noise beside him. “On my life.”

He didn’t totally trust his word, but it would have to do for now. Al stared up at the ceiling, the unbroken expanse of darkened wood.

“I keep having this thought that…that if it really had b-been Nina instead…”

His voice began to oscillate faster, until it was shaking violently.

“T-that it w-would’ve been better than…than if it had been—”

He wasn’t able to finish the sentence before he brought his legs in even tighter with a single choked sob, wishing he could vanish into the floor. The silence to his left was deafening, making his ears loudly ring.

Centuries passed in a moment of silence.

“I guess that makes two of us.”

If Al’s eyes could have widened, they would have. He quickly focused his attention on the Colonel.

“I’m not exactly proud of it, either, but…” Mustang shook his head. “In times like these, it’s easy to get caught up in your head and go to some dark places.”

His words had palpable weight behind them. The man blinked, rubbing his eyes.

“I wish I had something nice to say to wrap it all up in a neat little bow, like that your brother would have wanted it this way, but we both know that isn’t true.” The Colonel shifted again, repositioning himself against the wall. “Obviously, none of this should have happened, period. Especially since I could have stopped it, but—”

“It’s my fault, too!” Al dared to raise his voice as loud as he could go without disturbing Ed. “We were _both_ there, and we—”

Mustang raised a hand, stopping the declaration dead in its tracks.

“We could probably sit here all night and debate who's at fault and what we could have done differently,” he said heatedly, gaze fixed on Al. “But getting dragged down in the past isn’t helping anyone, least of all ourselves, and _definitely_ not Ed. We need to figure out how to move forward from here.”

Al stared at him for a few seconds before replying.

“…I thought you said you were bad at these kinds of talks?” A rare trickle of levity wove through his voice.

The Colonel’s flustered reaction brought a hint of muted pink into the scene.

“What? I mean, I didn’t really think that was _good,_ I just sort of went with my gut, and a lot of that I got from Hughes, so I’m not sure if—”

For the first time, Al dared to let a small laugh escape.

“Never mind.”

The man gave him a fake glower, humming a tone below stern, before standing up. His posture was nauseatingly prim and proper.

“Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted,” he proclaimed, an air of finality in his exaggerated yawn. “If you need me, I’ll be crying myself to sleep.”

“Make sure not to get your gloves wet,” Al replied with a half-hearted wave. With that, the man trotted out, muttering _‘self-deprecation doesn’t give everyone else a free license…’_ to himself as he slipped back into the halls.

Alone again, Al looked toward his suitcases. There wasn’t much there—the majority of stuff he needed to unpack right now was in his own head—but he knew there was a treasure trove of memories to be found. Photographs, letters, uncategorizable knick-knacks that they had created or accumulated over time. He was split down the middle, unsure if reliving them right now would ease or amplify his pain.

Something flashed out of the corner of his vision. A gleaming silver pocket watch had been placed on the floor. A folded piece of paper was jammed into the inside.

With trembling hands, Al picked it up. It took him ages to undo the latch without damaging the thing, but eventually, it spilled out with a click. He held the paper up to the moonlight, finding a message written in ink on its surface. The handwriting was nearly flawless, almost as if it had been written by someone who did paperwork for a living.

“Alphonse,

“I’ve always been better at conveying my thoughts in written words, so I wrote this for you. I figure since you’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future it might be good to lay down some ground rules.

“For starters: I don’t expect repayment for this, either now or at any point in the future. I get paid a handsome salary to procrastinate all day, and in any case, I think Hawkeye would finally shoot me for real if I expected orphans to pay rent.”

Putting aside the fact that Mustang was always on the verge of having Hawkeye shoot him ‘for real’,’ Al had never realized he and Ed had technically counted as orphans until now. It was strange to consider. It seemed like, even after the death of their mom, there had always been someone looking out for them in some way. He continued reading, shaking away the strangeness clouding his thoughts.

“Secondly, I don’t have any rules I expect you two to follow, other than 'don’t unnecessarily endanger yourselves.' I would say not to burn the place down, but my house is fireproofed, for obvious reasons. I’ll do my best to keep you informed of any emergent situations that would require special attention.

“Lastly…”

Al brought the paper a bit closer, squinting. There were tiny ink blotches between the words, as if the pen had been held there for a very long time before continuing to write.

“…if there’s anything you think I should know, feel free to tell me. _Especially_ if it concerns Ed. I’ve written a few phone numbers on the back that you can call just in case, but be careful of the military lines; they’re monitored at all times, and the person monitoring them may not be someone you want listening.

“That’s all for now. Stay safe,

“Roy Mustang, Colonel.”

Al tilted his head. Was it really necessary to announce his rank in a message meant for him and him alone? He decided he’d let the man have it, just this once. Before he turned the page, he noticed something written in the bottom corner.

“P.S. 

“I burned it. You already know what I’m talking about. Hawkeye insisted, but I was going to do it myself anyway.”

Al flipped the paper over. Sure enough, a laundry list of numbers had been jotted down, from the shared line of the office shared by Mustang’s entire unit to individual home phones.

Phone numbers…why was thinking about calling someone causing Al’s stomach to plummet out from under him? With nothing much to do but think, he pondered on the reaction for a while, until realization whacked him in the head with a wrench.

“Winry,” he said breathlessly, the wind knocked from lungs he didn’t even have.

Fuck. What was he supposed to tell Winry? _How_ was he supposed to tell Winry, or Aunt Pinako, for that matter? Just when he had found a foothold, it had crumbled out from under him, and his emotions were pulled out by a riptide towards the abyss.

A single memory waltzed to the forefront of his mind, blissfully ignorant of his suffering.

_“Hey. Hey, Al!”_

_His brother’s hollering grabbed his attention. Ed pointed towards his automail._

_“D’you remember when Winry said she wanted a checkup done?” He asked, head cocked to the side._

_Al put a hand under his chin, pondering. “I think sometime in the next two months.”_

That had been a month and a half ago.

Al was shaking, rocking back and forth in place, hoping it might calm him down. It didn’t. Ed turned on his side, a huge smile plastered on his face as he snuggled against the pillows and sheets.

“Win…ry…” His words were barely above an exhale, but it shot through Al like a siren, blowing his train of thought to pieces. Silently, he waited for more, but his brother had drifted back into his dreams.

He lifted the pocket watch that still rested in his hand up to the moonlight, watching it twist back and forth from the force of its own momentum around the chain. The strange symbol of the military stared back at him, with empty eyes, bared claws, and a horn. It was some strange mish-mash of several different types of animals, some of which didn’t even exist. A chimera.

Thinking about how his brother used to go on about becoming a dog of the military made him want to bury himself under a mountain of rocks.

Helplessly, he looked toward the moon, only to find it hadn’t budged from its spot the last time he looked at it.

This was going to be a _very_ long night.

* * *

With a vicious kick, the door was blown open, letting true light stream into the filthy basement.

“About _fucking_ time!”

Edward was currently lying in the middle of a transmutation circle and down two limbs, but his barbed-wire shriek and eyes burning with righteous indignation threatened an ass-kicking. Mustang didn’t doubt he’d deliver, somehow, even before getting back his arm and leg. Ed wasn’t his target, though, at least right now. Swiveling, he turned back to Tucker, the man’s pleasant facade having been blasted away with the door.

“You know…” Roy drawled, sliding his fingers across his palm, “kidnapping a state alchemist is a _very_ serious crime, Tucker. I wonder just how many years you could get for this one. Twenty?”

He easily dodged a punch angled in his direction, making use of Tucker’s uncontrolled momentum to grasp him by the arms and pin him down. His teeth made a nice cracking noise as they hit stone.

“Ah, assault? Add another ten years, at least. You must _really_ not want to see the sun again.” 

Roy stared back into the dimly lit basement.

“Though I suppose that isn’t too much of a surprise…”

Ed’s eye roll was visible from space.

“Wow, Colonel, you’re _so funny!”_ Ed’s voice was an overdose of sugar and arsenic, placed several octaves too high. “It’s _so_ funny that I almost forgot I was being held fucking _captive!_ By a _psycho maniac!_ Because your _comedy skills_ are _just—”_

“Put a sock in it, Fullmetal,” Roy shot back as he cuffed Tucker. The boy looked like he had another ballistic retort, but he paused, looking confused.

“Fullmetal? What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Mustang marched over, dangling a pocket watch in his hand. He tossed it, letting it skitter in front of Ed.

“Your new codename. This isn’t quite the way I would have liked to present it, but…”

Edward flashed a feral grin before snatching up the watch with his…right hand?

Wait, when had he gotten that back?

The boy quickly stood up with the leg he shouldn’t have had, dusting off the long red coat Roy could’ve sworn he wasn’t wearing earlier. Ed’s glare carved into his flesh, cutting below the bone as his gaze swept over him.

“What’s with the long face, Colonel?” Edward said, smiling even wider, practically baring his teeth. Roy was pretty sure teeth weren’t supposed to be that sharp. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, or something.”

Mustang turned, hoping not to let the boy see the rest of his sudden onset hallucination.

“Tryna play it tough? Huh, tough guy?” Ed was goading him, stomping his feet. “Let’s see how you handle _this_ one!”

Something grabbed his shoulder and roughly yanked him around backwards, but it wasn’t Ed he was staring at anymore.

Before he had enough time to wonder how Tucker had gotten out of his cuffs, he felt something strike the back of his head, and he collapsed to the ground. He wasn’t unconscious, far from it—his senses had gone into overdrive, absorbing the scene around him like a sponge.

Ed was missing an arm and a leg again, tied up in the center of the circle. Rusty iron pegs had been embedded into the ground, anchoring chains that wrapped around his body. No matter how hard the boy thrashed, he couldn’t escape. When he caught sight of Mustang, he briefly froze, eyes widening. He was screaming something, but adhesive strips had been placed over his mouth, muffling the words out of existence.

The basement was still dark, but not poorly lit. The shadows were alive and shining, boiling and running up the walls like an inverted waterfall, coalescing in a whirlpool spiral on the ceiling like a portal to hell itself. Unearthly red light filtered through it, bathing the scene in monotone infrared. In their cages, the chimeras stood still as statues, a single unending tone pouring forth from their mouths, like a choir.

No matter how much he willed it, he couldn’t move. Completely, totally helpless. Tucker’s voice was ringing inside his head, louder than anything he ever could have imagined.

_“I think the both of you will make a fine chimera together!”_

Chains seemed to sprout from below the ground like vines, lashing and wrapping around his limbs, dragging him in towards the circle. Ed kept screaming things he couldn’t hear, the audible desperation in his hidden voice rending his heart in two.

The divine blue spark of alchemy ignited the circle, running down the blood-inscribed array like a circuit, and Roy regained control just in time for both of them to scream.

The world smashed to black with a loud and sickening thud.

* * *

When Mustang was finally able to move again, he thrashed as hard as he could, until he realized that the only thing he was fighting was his blanket. Blinking, he pried the thing off him, revealing that he was laying on his back, next to his bed. There was a pulsing node of pain on the back of his head, the pain of getting pistol-whipped reignited. Even with one foot still stuck in a dream, it didn’t take much effort to piece together how the two were related.

Groaning, he clambered back up to lean on the bed, using a free hand to rub his eyes. His rapidly churning nausea made concepts like “standing up” a pipe dream. It was a good thing he hadn’t had a very heavy dinner. Or…anything at all, really. In the chaos, he had forgotten to eat.

He had known the whole situation would be making repeat appearances in his nightmares, but he hadn’t expected it would have come so soon, or so violently. He wondered if he had managed to experience even a fraction of the pain and terror Ed must have felt.

The second he had managed to gather his bearings, they were knocked all over the floor again by Al barging in.

“Finally!” Al was practically screaming in frustration. “Why is your house so big?! Colonel, it’s an emergency!” Al was waving his arms around wildly, gesticulating in any direction he was able.

Pushing back the migraine growing in his head, Roy narrowed his eyes.

“Al, what—?” he mumbled, only to be interrupted.

“What do _you_ think?!” Al spat back. _“It’s Ed!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I wasn't originally planning on ending the chapter with a cliffhanger, but you know how it goes. I'm evil.


	4. VY Canis Majoris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My work is done, now look at him:  
> He's never been more alive!  
> His head, it shakes, his fingers clutch.  
> Watch his body writhe!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: (Minor violence, swearing, baseball)
> 
> I'm finally back with another chapter! I think this might be the meanest one yet, but I'm not sure. What do you think? Be sure to tell me if it destroyed your soul as much as it destroyed mine. How much did it destroy mine? Well... let's find out!

The world turned onwards, and the sun rose again.

In the forsaken morning hours, even before the winter sun ignited, the darkness in the sky began fading into color, the curtain of deepest purple heated into a dim blue gradient. The bottom of the sky burgeoned with hints of warmth, melting the snowflakes of cold white stars on the cosmic canvas into the encroaching sea of light. Eventually, the clouds shifted through scattered arrays of pinks and oranges, regaining the life lost to the night, until the sun emerged from under the horizon with silent piercing rays.

As people awoke and began their day, sound and motion filled the air, returning time to the world once more.

Ever since the armor had become his new body, Al had watched the sunrise every day, and it never failed to rouse his heart. The emotions it evoked were as varied and intense as the colors of the morning sky.

But, like everything else, it wasn’t the same anymore. Something held him back from losing himself in the beauty of nature. As the sun lifted higher into the sky, banishing the last of the stars with its radiance, his frayed nerves increasingly demanded his attention be shifted elsewhere.

After all, the sun was millions of miles away, but his brother was about ten feet in front of him.

With light slowly filling the room’s atmosphere, the question of what he would do when Ed woke up rose quicker and quicker up his list of immediate priorities, and his estimations turned from any hour to any minute to any second. His brother had spent the night mumbling incoherently to himself, and the noises and random movements were growing louder and more frequent as day encroached.

Each passing moment seemed to tick by slower, as if he were approaching the inevitable conclusion of the situation asymptotically.

Al was considering waking his brother up himself until he heard a descending groan, passed halfway out of a dream, followed by another movement. He had been here enough times to know what was happening, cued to his brother’s subtle, unconscious behaviors.

As much as he wanted to run up there and hug his brother until the end of time, memories of last night’s encounter haunted him. If he made any sudden or ambiguous movements, there was no telling what Ed might think. Paralyzed with indecision, he stood stock-still, a statue.

With bated breath, he waited.

* * *

Even when Ed stopped dreaming it felt like he was still asleep.

It took a sec but he knew that feeling of coming out of a dream like his brain was slowly turning back on. Everything was coming back to him but then it just…stopped. He still felt stuck in that dream time fog but no matter how much he tried to move his thoughts around they wouldnt budge.

He didnt know why but today felt like it was gonna be a bad day.

For one he had no idea where he was supposed to be right now. The ceiling didnt look familiar at all. Which is weird because he was pretty sure hed have remembered falling asleep in a strange place like this. Where was he?

No matter how hard he tried to remembered what hed been doing yesterday his memories just wouldnt budge. There was a big wall around the whole thing keeping him out of his own thoughts.

Itd be great if his mind could stop playing tricks on him.

“Ugh…” The word just sorta slipped out of his mouth which was probably because of the pain he was in. He defintley didnt remember being in that much pain the last time he woke up.

Despite the two different types of pain in his head he lifted it slightly out from under the covers to try an look around a bit.

Oh thank _God_ his brother was here. Thinking about Al hurt his heart for some reason but the memory of why was still trapped behind that stupid wall. He was practically starin a hole into Ed when he spoke.

“Al?”

Al kinda stiffened a bit but still didnt said nothing. Ed had the feeling it was related to all of that stuff he still couldnt remember. Either that or his brother was doin that stupid fucking silent treatment shit again where hed get real mad and they wouldnt speak for a few days. Well hed have to just suck it up because how was Ed supposed to apologize if he didnt even know what he did?

His head was _still_ stuck in that state like he hadnt woken up which was kinda worrying to be honest. On top of the fact that nothing was adding up right now and he had absolutely no idea what was happening his brother was acting real weird too. He could only remember one time when his brother had acted like that which funny enough was also when he last remembered being in a bunch of pain everywhere. Right after—

—the human transmutation! For some reason the thought hit Ed like a hammer and he sat up in bed real quick. He remembered forgetting about that somehow which was hard to believe. I mean they had burned their house down cause of it! In any case it had been right after the transmutation when they were staying with Winry but still before his…

…automail…sur…gery…

…wait.

He could feel. His arm. His _arms. His legs._ Pressing against the sheets.

Ed was too afraid to move. Maybe he really _was_ still dreaming? But that didnt make sense everything seemed just a bit too solid an real for it to all be fake. In fact _he_ felt like the only unreal thing right now. His mind seemed too unreliable right now so hed have to just suck it up and ask his brother.

“Why do I—?”

He couldnt even finish the sentence before his jaw slipped and his tongue caught roughly against his teeth. A bunch of pain shot through his mouth and he hissed. Ow! Fuck!

“Brother!”

Al moved over real fast until he was a lot closer. Ed guessed it wasnt the silent treatment this time at least. Apparently accidentally biting your tongue like a dumbass was the secret trick to get his brother to stop doing that. Hed have to remember that one for later. He knew he looked like a total moron but to be honest he kindve felt like one right now to.

“…tongue slipped…” Ed grumbled as a metal taste got all over his mouth. Gross. He hadnt even woken up more than a minute ago and the day just kept getting worse. He decided to try speaking again but more careful this time.

“…why…are my arm and leg…” His throat constricted. Why was his body fighting him so damn much? “…not gone?”

He looked up at Al hopin he would be answering but he had taken another few steps back away from him. Ed frowned. Not only did he still not get an answer but he actually left with more questions than he started. This whole thing was stupid. He wished somebody would just come in and explain it to him instead of tapdancing around it like he was a dumb kid. He thought his brother knew better than that but apparently not.

You couldve cut the tension with a knife. Finally his brother spoke.

“Ed, do…” He paused. Ed wasnt the only one who couldnt use his words right today at least. Maybe it was infectious. “Do you know what happened?”

Was he _serious?_ If Ed knew what happened he wouldnt be fucking asking!

“No!” Ed leaned forward while he tried to stare his brother deep in the eyes. “I _don’t_ , obv…obv—obvio…”

Nice one jackass. The word was _obviously_ as in _obviously_ Ed was some kind of supreme moron who still couldnt talk correct. A jolt of frustration and anger and fear and a whole bunch of other things ran down his entire body—

_Wait._

He seized up and his eyes went wide and stared at nothing. His brother might have been sayin something but _that wasnt really important right now what was that._

Something was…attached to him. Not like his automail was or had been but like a fifth limb. That…that wasnt supposed to be there.

Maybe it wasnt real which honestly wouldnt be too out of the ordinary given how messed up he felt. Without looking he very slowly moved his left hand to the side where his mind told him something was. He moved his hand slower and slower like he was afraid of what would happen if—

—he actually felt it.

He couldnt chose between moving and staying still so he sort of shook quietly as his mind went inwards. He was only sorta aware of his brother standing off to the side also not moving.

This whole time he had been trying to get an explanation. Finally he got given what he wished for.

And God, he wished he hadnt.

He couldnt tell if it took him so long to process what he was feeling because his mind was so fucked up or because what he felt didnt make any sense at all or maybe some combination of the two. He only knew one thing that felt like this.

_Fur._

A fifth limb.

_A tail._

And…and now that…now that he thought about it…

Hed been too caught up in feeling a second hand and leg to realize _how_ they were feeling. His hand pulled inwards slightly against the sheets and he felt something pulling at the base of his fingernails, like they had gotten caught on something. _Clawing something._

Ed had a very complete knowledge of human anatomy. Even if he couldnt remember most of it right now— _why why why why what was happening to him_ —he still could tell at a glance even if he couldnt give specific details if something was right or wrong.

_He was wrong._

It was too easy for him to realize that he hadnt looked down.

He kept telling his mind to raise his arm up to where his eyes could see it. Nothing moved. He tried turning his head down to look at it. Still nothing moved.

The question of where he was had been violently replaced by the question of _what_ he was. In the back left corner he saw something tucked against the left wall facing per—per…perpendicular to how he was sitting. It wasnt reflecting him right now but it wasnt attached to the wall or anything.

His breathing got even more shallow when he realized his brother was in the room. Looking. Staring. Not saying anything.

He knew. Ed could see it in that way he was standing like he was _afraid._

Just this once Ed decided he had to be a little selfish. No matter what Al was going through he _needed an answer right now._ Silently he prayed his brother would forgive him.

“Al.” His voice wavered all breathy-like. It sounded all harsh like someone had just died which honestly wasnt too far from how Ed felt right now. “I need…”

Disgust rolled through him an he shivered which only made him feel more nauseous because it was more and more obv… _obvious_ that something about him was different. It was pathetic but apparently enough to get Al to start talking.

“B-Brother? What is it?”

His brother was so so afraid. Ed had to stomp down the urge to vomit cause it would have meant having to bring his hands up to his mouth and he didnt want to think about moving them right now. Instead he looked to the left and tried to stop thinking.

“The mirror,” he whispered. “I…I want t-to…” 

Ed swallowed a lump building in his throat and squeezed his eyes shut for a second before looking back. “…my reflec…tion…”

Thinking about not being able to talk just made it even harder to say words. He was shaking so badly like he was in a snowstorm despite the temperature being perfectly fine. Well that wasnt entirely true because his arms and legs and the…the other limb felt a bit too warm and _fuck stop thinking stop thinking he had to stop thinking_ and his brother and the mirror still hadnt moved he was just standing there looking not moving not doing anything _it felt like he was dying Al please make it stop—_

_“Al!”_ It was practically sobbed. Tears were starting to blur his eyes so much that by the time his brother actually did anything Ed would probably be crying too hard to actually see.

His brother made that nervous wavery noise he always made when he got all overwhelmed. Ed knew he was being a stupid selfish idiot but _please Al he needed to know_ but finally there was a shift. His brother with hands shaking almost as badly as he was moved his hands to the side and turned the mirror to face him.

Before he even saw his reflection he made a real pathetic noise and squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head down. Like the moron he was he had demanded something and then not even used it once he got it. Stupid.

He tried to tell himself whatever he was thinking in his head probably wasnt as bad as whatever hed see. It had to be. That had to be true.

His head moved up. His eyes opened.

Ed couldn’t see his whole body. But it was enough. Enough. Enough.

Enough.

Hed had enough.

He remembered everything all at once.

Going to Tucker. Being drugged. His automail torn out. The transmutation. The transmutation.

_The transmutation._

No matter how hard he breathed the air wasnt getting to his lungs. Al had moved the mirror away and was near him but it was too late. The image was burned into his eyes and it wasnt going away. He clutched his head and screamed.

It made sense why his brain still felt stuck halfway through sleep. He remembered how his mind used to be real active spinning with all sorts of ideas and thoughts that he surprised even himself sometimes. But things had been taken and bent and cut away or replaced. Something had been _broken._ His mind would never ever snap out of it ever again. He was trapped in a ruined copy of himself and the original was gone. Gone.

No matter how hard he remembered how he used to be it would never come back. He was Edward and Alexander and neither at the same time. He wasnt human anymore. And he was stuck like this. 

For the rest of his life.

Forever.

Forever.

Forever.

Once he started wailing he couldnt get himself to stop. He just kept lashing and clawing— _because he was an animal make it stop make it stop help save me Al why cant you save me_ —at something which made him do it even harder every time he felt how his arms and legs didnt bend like they were supposed to. Like he _remembered._ He wasnt even seeing anything in front of him cause his head hurted too much. All his thoughts flew right past him and each one made him sink even further. They was slow and broken and wrong and childish. It wasnt him. It _hadnt_ been him but now it was.

Like usual the only thing that brought him back was his brother.

Al was just sitting there taking all of his…hurting _(why didnt he know a word for this he used to know he used to know)._ Just sitting there and looking at him. Looking.

His brother was seeing him like this.

Ed pushed himself way in the other direction until he fell over the other side of the bed leaning against the wall. He couldnt see his brother from here and his brother probaly couldnt see him. Good. He didnt want anyone to look at him right now least of all his brother.

What was he supposed to do now? It didnt matter how strong he tried to be Al would never ever be able to depend on him ever again. He couldnt see his brothers expression but he knew the only thing behind it was disgust.

He lied on the ground and tried really really hard to stop crying. He knew it wouldnt make anything better but maybe itd make Al feel better. Maybe Al could eventually forget he ever had a brother so he wouldnt have to be hurt by seeing Ed again. He couldnt imagine a life without Al but he hadnt been able to imagine a life where he wasnt a human being before either so what good was his mind really worth anyway. It definitely wasnt worth anything now.

All he did was let his eyes go wide as he stared at nothing.

Eventually he went numb.

Dont think about it.

Dont think about it.

Dont think.

* * *

A million volts of electricity coursed through his armor.

To avoid breaking down so far he couldn’t recover, he clung to the razor-thin silver lining of the pitch black storm cloud he was embroiled in, even as it made him bleed.

His brother remembered. Remembered who he was, what he’d done, what he’d used to be.

What he’d _used_ to be.

The small, scared child within wanted to run away, never wanting to see Ed in that state ever again. His hysterical brother had been clawing at him, tear-stained eyes focused on nothing and no one, _shrieking_ louder than Al had ever heard him scream before. It couldn’t have gone on longer than a few minutes, but every single second of it had been carved into his retinas, millions of ghostly afterimages, filling his vision with static.

In a bottomless moment of shame, for a single second, he thought his brother really _had_ become an animal.

That black thought, combined with seeing Ed curled up in the fetal position on the other side of the bed, snapped him from his hollow shock. He had to do something, and _quickly._ If a mental breakdown was like a car crash, then Ed was currently buried in the middle of a fifty-car pileup, barely clinging to sanity.

Running out the door and into the hall, he decided it was time for the Colonel to make good on his word.

The man looked like he had literally just gotten out of bed when Al barged in. In better circumstances, he might have marveled at the sight of seeing the man in his pajamas, but right now it barely registered. The man’s sleepiness evaporated at the sound of Ed’s name, and they were soon sprinting down the corridors in a heated lockstep.

“What happened?!” The Colonel shouted over the clambering of metal.

“The mirror!” Al shouted back.

His brow furrowed at first, but soon all blood drained from the man’s face, frozen in a moment of stark white realization.

Ed hadn’t moved an inch since Al left as they burst in, still sporting a vacant yet terrified look on his face. The Colonel merely stood there for a while, staring at his quivering form, until he turned to look at the mirror.

“It…” Mustang paused, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have left you two alone. I _knew_ something like this was going to happen, but…”

“I don’t care what you were or weren’t going to do, Colonel.” Al’s voice was colder than ice and hotter than fire. “All I care about is how you’re going to help my brother.”

The man took a step away at first, taken aback, but his expression soon hardened with a firm nod.

“You’re right.” He turned to face Ed. “I’ve got to.”

* * *

Easier said than done.

How, exactly, did one comfort a twelve-year-old boy dealing with the fact that he's been forcefully fused with the family dog? Most advice tended to be given from experience, but this was so far outside his lane that it was running along the surface of another planet entirely. If anything, _Al_ should have the most experience with issues related to having a different body.

But despite his ineptness in situations like these, even he wasn’t foolish enough to turn around and ask the boy to do it himself. Al had decided to put his trust in Roy—a fact which he was eternally grateful for, but a responsibility which he would have to take seriously.

Still, though, he wanted to go back to the past and smack himself around a little. It was obvious even _without_ the benefit of hindsight that leaving the younger brother alone to deal with the trauma of the older brother was a recipe for disaster in the making, no matter how noble his intentions may have been. It was indicative of a deeper problem with his mindset, obviously: That he hadn’t been giving Ed the respect he deserved. _Needed,_ as evidenced by the situation unfolding in front of him. He needed to address this, and fast.

Whatever the answer was, it certainly didn’t involve standing around, waiting for the problem to fix itself. Pushing his feelings aside with the power of years of emotional bottling, he advanced forward, until he was a few feet in front of Ed, who didn’t seem to notice.

He knelt down, wanting to go in for the hug, but hesitated. What if Ed got scared and lashed out and hit him? What if—

God, Roy was _still_ fucking doing it. The second he dropped his focus, he was back to thinking of him like an animal. This needed to stop, right now. He wasn’t dealing with a dangerous beast, but a scared kid. _His_ kid.

Personal safety be damned, he leaned forward with an open embrace.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore how much the scent of blood, sweat, and adrenaline choked his nose, when he heard a voice in his ear.

“Colonel?”

The voice was too parched, too cracked, too dry and choked up, but it was Ed all the same. Before he could reply, he felt hands push against him, and the boy had retreated into the corner.

The last time he had seen golden eyes so terrified was the night he went to Resembool.

Ed had been pulled a bit closer into the present, but the divide between them was still palpable. Ed was so tense he would have exploded if you scratched him.

Wordlessly, Roy extended a hand.

Edward’s gaze flickered between the hand and his face, his expression completely inscrutable.

They stood like that for a long time. Mustang didn’t know _how_ long, but it was long enough for his bent knee to start complaining about being dug into the carpet. Finally, Ed shifted, and spoke.

“But _why?”_

He gave a confused frown.

“Why? Why what?”

The boy took a few seconds to reply, but he waited patiently. He’d wait as long as he needed to. Edward looked down at the ground, muttering his reply.

“I’m n-not u…useful to y-y-you anym…more…”

He went from being propped up on one knee to falling on both, bringing him closer to the ground. His chest ached after the hit-and-run that had been committed against his soul, and he didn’t know if he’d ever recover.

_“Ed…”_ With his inhibition weakened, the name slipped out on its own.

Was this the culmination of his entire military persona? Was all of the ‘respect’ he had accumulated worth it if _this_ was the end result? Roy would go to work wearing full clown makeup for the rest of his life if it meant Ed never said those words ever again.

“You’re a _person,_ Ed. I don’t need a reason to want you to be safe.”

His head shot upwards, eyes widened and pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

“But I’m n-not—!”

_“Yes you are.”_ His voice was as firm as he could manage. “It doesn’t matter what you look like. You’re still you, Edward.”

He stared at Roy, mouth hanging, trembling for a response to prove the man wrong. None was forthcoming. Eventually his eyes welled with tears, looking up at something behind Mustang.

“Did…” The statement was interrupted with a hiccup. “Did Nina…?”

Even now. Even now, he was worried about his family. This kid…

“Nina is safe, Ed,” Roy explained softly. “She’s with Hughes. She’s fine.”

For a fraction of a nanosecond, something resembling a smile tugged at Ed’s lips.

“Al…?” He was about a hair’s width away from bursting into tears again.

Roy moved back and to the side just in time to avoid Al crashing into him as he barreled forth. He watched on the sidelines as the two embraced, crying all over each other. It was bittersweet, with the “bitter” and “sweet” mixing intensely, the aura almost visible to the naked eye.

The sobbing from both sides wound down at a glacial pace, occasionally redoubling, but always a little softer than the worst of it. Soon, an exhausted Ed was left clinging to his brother, lying in a silence interspersed with erratic sniffles and hiccups.

_These boys are going to shave decades off my lifespan…_

Given how fragile the mood was, he decided to keep that little quip to himself.

Eventually, Ed wordlessly crawled back up onto the bed, his eyes heavy and red. He shoved himself under the covers, obscuring everything below his shoulders, and stared up at the ceiling.

The negative energy he radiated was searing, and threatened to form a black hole in the center of the room at any moment, but given what they had been dealing with before, it was almost certainly an improvement.

Strangely, it was Ed who broke the silence.

“…shower.” He fidgeted a little under the covers, very deliberately looking away from both of their gazes.

Roy blinked. “What?”

“N-need a shower,” Ed replied, a little louder. “Or a…or a bath or s-something.” His expression sank, as if it hadn't been subterranean already. “Feels awful.”

Oh, right. It made sense, but like many things, he had neglected to consider such an obvious situation until it was staring him right in the face.

Al, his merciful angel, his savior, stood up, interjecting to save him from the dire straits he had found himself in.

“I can help, Brother.” He turned to look at Mustang. “Where’s the bath?”

“Take a right when you leave the room and its three doors down, but…are _you_ going to help him, you know…?”

“Yes, that’s the plan.” Al tilted his head to the side. “Unless _you_ want to do it, Colonel.”

“No.” The reply came from both Roy and Ed, with Ed’s a bit delayed. They shot each other a look conveying emotions not meant for words.

“Uh, I mean,” Roy continued, tugging at the collar of his pajamas, “I _would,_ but since you’ve offered to do it, and I’m sure you have more experience with—”

“Colonel?”

“Yes, Alphonse?”

“Put a sock in it.”

He looked down at the ground, defeated.

Alphonse reached his hands forward, scooping Ed up with a slight yelp. The embarrassed boy leaned into his brother’s chest, blushing fiercely. Slowly, his eyes lit up with something resembling realization.

“…where are…m-my clothes?”

Al, apparently sensing the cacophony of thought going on in Roy’s head, began walking them out of the room, leaving Mustang alone.

“Well, they didn’t fit you anymore, Brother…” he heard trail from down the hall. By the time Ed replied, they were already too far to be heard.

The mental toll of the situation fell on Roy like a bag of bricks, and he was distinctly aware of the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything today. As if to hammer the point home, his stomach growled.

Yeah, breakfast sounded pretty good right about now. Still, there was one more thing he had to do…

* * *

This wasn’t the first time Al had to take care of his brother like this.

When Ed was stuck in a wheelchair, missing half his limbs, there was very little he was able to do on his own without assistance. Someone had to be at his side at all times, and for the most part, that duty ended up falling to Al. Thankfully, Winry and Aunt Pinako were there to give him pointers about what to do, but it wasn’t always easy to actually _do_ it. Not a day went by where Ed didn't apologize, no matter how many times Al told him he didn’t need to. Not a day went by where his brother didn't seem to die a little more on the inside every time he called himself an invalid.

Even though Al had seen first-hand the toll the automail had taken, he had been silently thankful he had been spared from having that exchange ever again.

So much for that. So much for lots of things.

As the water slowly pooled, his brother continued to peer sullenly at the floor tiles. When he looked upward with a familiar pleading expression, mouth hanging open to speak. Al cut him off.

“You better not be about to say ‘sorry.’”

Ed’s mouth pulled back for a second, but he went back to trying to glare a hole through the linoleum. He looked downright petulant.

His brother had been easy to read before, but never _this_ easy.

Once steam had begun to coil off the surface of the water, Ed experimentally dipped a toe in. He gasped and recoiled at first, but his leg returned, and soon he had slid into the water, until only his head was above it. His hair floated on the surface, snaking in odd directions around him.

His expression was…well, assigning any positive emotion to that face would be disingenuous, at best, but it was like some of his burdens had melted away. He looked several pounds lighter, even if there were still deep bags under his eyes. It felt vanishingly fragile, like the slightest touch might destroy it, so Al simply let the moment last in silence, content with observing his brother.

Eventually, though, Ed sighed, and some of that gravity returned.

“‘M glad there’s no…” He stopped for a second, careful not to aggravate the wound on his tongue he had gotten earlier. “…wet dog s-smell.”

Al was torn on whether laughing was a good idea or not. He settled on the latter after seeing the way Ed’s expression darkened again.

It took a while. Every so often, his brother would suddenly freeze up, like he was seeing something Al couldn’t, and tears would start to well up in his eyes before he huddled in on himself, muffling his sobs against his legs. When that happened, all Al could do was put a hand around him in a sort of awkward side-hug. The feeling of metal probably wasn’t the most comfortable, but given the way it made his brother regain some composure, he had a feeling Ed didn’t care.

The fur presented some complications, but for the most part, treating it the same as hair seemed to work fine in the end. Ed had closed his eyes and pretended he was somewhere else during the whole thing, which definitely wasn’t a healthy way to deal with the situation, but Al even more definitely wasn’t going to make a point out of it, at least right now.

Ed huddled on a white bath rug, swaddled in a towel intended for a person several times larger than him. A perpetual dark cloud hung over his head, his haunted expression a notch above lifeless misery.

But hey, he was clean now. Progress.

The fact that Ed didn’t have any clothes was quickly becoming a more pressing issue. Al looked around the room, as if hoping a solution would materialize. Strangely, it seemed one had: a flash of red caught his attention, and he noticed a neatly folded red bathrobe lying on the counter. He could have sworn he hadn’t seen it on his way in.

Another note was folded right alongside it.

“This is my smallest bathrobe (don’t tell Ed). The color is purely coincidental. If it’s still too big, feel free to trim it down to size.”

Al was beginning to wonder if the Colonel would be a much less irritating person if forced to communicate through written word only.

Either way, a bathrobe _did_ make sense: it was loosely fitting, so Ed wouldn’t have to worry about how it went over his limbs, particularly the tail. It would also cover his entire body barring his hands and feet, which, given the way Ed still hitched and skipped a breath every time he accidentally looked down at himself, was a blessing Al could not be more thankful for.

His brother gave it an odd look when he brought it over.

“Clothes,” Al said simply.

Ed blinked, glancing to the side with a small blush. 

Wordlessly, he allowed Al to dress him. He stared at the ceiling almost the entire time, eyes glazed over in impenetrable thoughts. Maybe this coping mechanism _was_ worth examining further, after all. Once the ribbon had been tied, Ed, likely from sheer muscle memory, tried to stand up on two feet.

He managed to stay stable for about a quarter of a second, and upright for about another half-second. He slipped, falling back and almost braining himself on the ceramic rim of the tub before Al caught him by the hand. The two were frozen in some kind of mock dance, Ed’s eyes wide and trembling, Al externally still but internally panicking. Eventually, his brother seemed to release the tension, sliding against the ground.

“Can’t walk.” It didn’t sound like he was talking to Al. “Can’t walk. C-can’t…”

His eyes widened, and he began to curl in on himself again.

“A-am I gonna have…have to walk everyw-where on all f-fours?!” Through his violent shaking, he stared desperately up at his brother. “Al, ple…please d-don’t—”

“Ed.” Al forcefully interjected before Ed could work himself up into a greater panic. “Nobody is going to force you to walk around on your hands. And if they do…”

Al raised his gauntlets, brutally smashing them together.

“…they can take it up with me.”

His brother had flinched at the loud noise, but the words had made him stop shaking, at least. The storm clouds hanging above his head were darker than ever, and Ed looked like he was ready to be swallowed up by the ground.

“I…” Ed’s head lowered even further, until his hair was practically drooping along the ground. “S-sorry…”

“It’s okay, Ed,” Al said softly, leaning down to scoop him off the ground. He offered no resistance as he was hoisted into the air. “It’s okay.”

Ed looked like he was biting back a reply, but something flashed across his face. Al didn’t recognize it at first, if only because it had been far too long since a non-intrinsically negative emotion had graced it. With a concerned frown, he lifted his head into the air.

“Breakfast?” he asked.

“Huh?” Of all the things Al had been expecting him to say, that was probably at the bottom of the list. What did…?

…oh, wait. Dogs. Sense of smell. Right.

His question of what the Colonel was up to had been answered before it was even asked. 

Al was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that Ed had skipped lunch yesterday.

“Are you hungry?” He looked down at his brother’s eager expression.

“Yeah,” Ed quickly breathed, “Really. A lot.”

Hopefully the Colonel saved some for them, or else he’d be eating breakfast through a tube for a week. Al would see to it personally.

* * *

The Colonel, like all high-ranking officers, had many secrets locked in his skull, all of which would never see the light of day, even under threat of imminent death. Most of them concerned classified state information, the secrets of flame alchemy, or the truth about the day Havoc’s pack of cigarettes had been mysteriously replaced with a box of sparklers. Today, however, he could add another one to the pile.

That is, the fact that he was glad that the crime against humanity hadn’t occurred on a weeknight.

Roy was no five-star chef, but he knew how to whip up an edible meal. He would go as far as saying his cooking was above-average, at least to his taste buds. He’d find out soon enough if it was an acquired taste.

Mustang had made the minimal effort to change out of his pajamas, but “minimal” meant throwing on a generic black undershirt he wore below his uniform and a pair of slacks. He waltzed back into the kitchen and threw his pantry open, only to reveal most of the shelves were bare, adorned only by lint and cobwebs. A cursory glance inside the fridge was met with a similarly disappointing selection. A bit of rough mental math later, and Roy determined they still had enough food for a couple of days or so—but half a carton of eggs, a third of a gallon of milk, and a bunch of overripe bananas did not a balanced breakfast make.

With a flat hum that echoed through the nearly empty house, he shut the refrigerator door again, punctuated by the teetering clink of condiment bottles, putting his hand under his chin. It would probably be some time before the brothers were done, but there wasn’t enough time to make a two-way trip to the market to get food. There was nothing he could do on his own.

Luckily, he didn’t _have_ to do it all by himself.

Marching over to the phone tucked near the passageway to the dining room, he quickly spun out a familiar number along the rotary dial. The rattling ring was cut off halfway through, and he heard movement on the other side of the line.

_“You’re up early, sir.”_

Roy rubbed his eyes. “Good morning to you too, First Lieutenant.”

The was a discontented hum on the other side of the line.

_“Did something happen?”_

He winced as the memory rewound and played back in his head.

“…Ed woke up.” He stopped for a second, carefully considering his phrasing. “It went, uh…about as well as you’d expect.”

Smooth. 

“He’s doing better, though,” he hurriedly added after hearing the low, worried thrum sounding through the earpiece. “It’s just…”

For a few moments, there was nothing but the static of the line.

_“…well, I suppose ‘better’ is the only thing we can ask for right now.”_

There was a shifting noise on the other end of the line, the folding and shifting of a canvas bag.

_“Actually, you caught me at the perfect time. I was just about to head over.”_ The jangling and clinking of keys shifted under her voice. _“Should I bring anything?”_

His sigh of relief probably shouldn’t have been as audible as it ended up being.

“My pantry is empty,” he explained curtly. “You know I could probably live off a box of saltines for weeks, but Ed—”

_“Understood.”_

The line hitched and droned into monotone.

He probably should have been more concerned about his haggard appearance, but he had enough sense to realize the futility of tidying up. Even if the person coming over wasn’t Hawkeye, the woman who had him dead to rights any day of the week, he was pretty sure even a child could see the way he had been weathered to bone and dust. You could carry groceries in the bags under his eyes.

Speaking of groceries, though, it would have been nice if Riza said _what_ she was bringing over…

Unwilling to begin cooking with just table scraps, Mustang found himself burdened with an unexpected pocket of free time. It wouldn’t take Hawkeye more than fifteen to twenty minutes to arrive, which didn’t leave him with much to do, especially since he needed to remain downstairs.

After a few minutes of wracking his mind, a flash of inspiration struck him.

Finally, his skills at the art of procrastinating and killing time were bearing fruit.

Roy maneuvered out of the kitchen and into his living room, greeted by an assortment of bookshelves lining the walls. Most of the dust jackets were keeping true to their name, thanks to Roy’s bad habit of buying books that looked interesting and adding them to a backlog that had long since halted. Still, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be appreciated by someone _else._ His finger loosely ran over the spines, jumping between eye-catching titles.

Geological strata of passing interests sped across his eyes. There was a cornucopia of subjects and genres: heady scientific musings, like _On The Discovery of Gamma Rays and their Implications,_ intriguing anthropological accounts that guilt left him too haunted to touch, like _Ishbal: Jewels of the Desert,_ and a bit of realistic fiction and crime thrillers, such as _The Mad Alchemist—_

He quickly turned his eyes away from that one, continuing down the line.

Mustang had nearly reached the end of his rope and collection alike. He was down to the last bookshelf, when he finally caught sight of a moderately-sized tome, a glossy white jacket with a red ribbon of color running across the top and bottom. Turning it over, it seemed to be exactly what he was looking for.

Distantly, the doorbell chimed. Not a moment too soon.

Tucking the hardcover under his arm, he quickly weaved through his house towards the door, pulling it open.

There was a gun in his face, and he froze.

Time only resumed once he realized Hawkeye was behind the trigger. She lowered her weapon, mouth taught in equal parts amusement and concern.

“Check who’s at the door next time before opening it.” Her voice was as frigid as the winter air being let in. “Sir.”

A rogue snowflake landed squarely on his nose, which unscrambled his brain. He managed to nod and eke out a stiff reply.

“You’re right, First Lieutenant.” He sounded several years younger, and not in a good way. “Did you bring the food?”

Riza exhaled strongly, causing a flurry of mist to whirl up and across her face. The wind batted a few stray strands of hair across her face. Her eyelids drooped, unsurprised but disappointed.

“Yes, I did.”

She hoisted a few canvas bags looped around her arm, the exertion prompting another flurry of mist. “I didn’t have much, either, but I brought what I could.”

“Thank _God.”_ Roy moved to the side, shutting the door to stop the air from getting in. “Have I ever told you you’re a lifesaver, Lieutenant?”

Hawkeye shot him another look. “I’m not opposed to hearing it again.”

Cooking breakfast for three wasn’t something Roy had ever found an occasion for, but with two people keeping track of things, it went by mercifully smooth. Edward’s physical for the state alchemy exam had revealed the boy didn’t have any legitimate dietary concerns, despite his frequent attempts to establish his “lactose intolerance.” Still, Mustang made sure to stow the milk back in the fridge when he was done with it. In any case, it was laughable to refer to Ed’s old physical as any sort of authority.

The end result was an admirable spread: a stack of blueberry and butter-lined pancakes, a hearty plate of sausage and bacon, and some fruit that was only a smidge below fresh. He’d never say it out loud, but he tried to make sure there was nothing in there toxic to dogs, as far as he knew. Roy had never owned a dog, but he had attended a mandatory course during military training on the appropriate way to treat canine units. It was hardly a guarantee of anything: that had been years ago, and Ed’s general physical condition was pretty much a giant question mark for all intents and purposes. Still, he was pretty proud of the end result of their efforts, and only his table manners kept him from starting breakfast without the brothers.

Well, that and the jittery nervousness scraping at his stomach, but who was asking?

While Roy cleaned the kitchen, Hawkeye set the dining room. Roy hardly ever ate in the dining room, preferring to eat over the kitchen table like a savage, but for Ed’s sake, he’d go the extra mile. The noises of clinking cutlery briefly faded, and Hawkeye called out a question. 

_“‘Diamonds in the Rough: A History of the Modern Amestrian Baseball League’?”_ She must have caught sight of the book he had set to the side. Her head poked from around the corner, a befuddled frown and a furrowed brow across her face.

“Not for me.” His gaze drifted vaguely upstairs. “For Ed.”

Ed had shown absolutely no interest in baseball, let alone the ABL, which was perfect. If left to his own devices, the boy would probably try to bury himself in those dusty alchemy tomes he always seemed to lug around. Given the very strong negative associations shackled to alchemy right now, mixed with the addled state of his mind, Roy suspected having an alternative might come in handy in case that ended up going sour. Worse case scenario, it was just unnecessary, but it might save Ed from having yet another breakdown.

“Does he like baseball?”

Mustang scrubbed vigorously at a stubborn stain on his granite countertop before responding.

“No, but he likes reading. I’ve never seen a book that kid wouldn’t read.”

Riza shrugged. “If you say so.”

Before he could reply, there was a dulled and rhythmic thudding against the carpet upstairs.

* * *

Ed had been right when he thought today was gonna be a bad day.

Even after that…the whole incident with his brother and the Colonel and all had passed he still just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep and never wake up. Whenever he thought too hard his head hurted even though that had _never ever_ happened before but now it was all the time. No matter what his brother said it didnt really feel like anything was ok at all.

Breakfast smelled good though. The bathrobe felt nice too. He let them distract him a bit longer.

The funny thing was he was so out of it that he didnt notice there was someone else downstairs before he actually saw her. He couldnt remember ever not seeing Hawkeye wearing that blue uniform but then she turned and saw him and his brain turned off again.

Like the big stupid baby he was his eyes slammed shut and he tried to bury his head into Als armor as far as he could and then just stopped moving. He made a pathetic sounding whine but he managed to stop himself from making any more. Maybe shed think hed died and stop looking or something. The longer he sat there the more he realized how dumb an idea that was. Shed probably start laughing any minute. Honestly he was kinda surprised the colonel hadnt started yet to.

The hug surprised him.

She didnt say anything but he could feel a pair of arms around him and he knew for a fact that mustang didnt smell like mint or clean laundry.

He couldnt started crying again god damn it. Stop. Stop right now.

Thankfully she let go before he could really embarrass himself in front of a nother person today. At least more than he probably had already just by existing. Ed was too tired to care anymore so he gave up trying to hide. He was also starving so that mightve helped.

Even though he realy tried his hardest it was to hard to get over the fact that his brother had to help him into the chair. Hed really almost lost it when he realized he could barely hold a fork right but he managed to find a real weird sorta two handed grip that worked. It looked and felt terrible and it took ages to do anything but it got food into his mouth so thats all that realy mattered right now.

He was in the middle of n—neg…negotiating with his pancakes and the silverware when they finally started to do stuff besides just stare at him. Hawkeye looked sorta strangely at Mustang.

“So what’s the deal with that baseball book?”

It took him about a second but his brain eventually caught up with the words. He still didnt really get the meaning though so he just sort of sat there with his fork stuck in a pile of food. His brother wasnt moving either though so at least it wasnt completely because he was broken.

“Baseball?” Al said.

The man looked a bit flustered.

“I just thought, you know…” His hands did a weird sorta gesture. “You’d want something to read for fun.”

Ed still hadnt moved and now he was back to being stared at. Uh oh. Better do something quick or they wouldnt stop. He didnt realy feel up to say anything so he just tried to continue eating no matter how hard it was to forget that the hands holding the fork were his now. Thats what theyd look like. Forever.

Thankfully they realy had stopped looking at him again or theyd have seen him blink a few tears down.

“I know your brother likes to read, Al,” Mustang continued. He was doing a weird kinda nervous motion with his hands. “Uh, but if, you know, Ed doesn’t _like_ baseball, I can go get another one…”

Then something amazing happened. He wouldnt have believed it if he hadnt heard it himself.

His brother laughed.

Al sounded _happy._

And for the first time in a long long time he felt happy too.

“Actually.” His brother raised a single finger and Ed could tell he was about to launch into one of those long stories. “Believe it or not, we once had a professional player come to Resembool.”

Ed furrowed his brow tryna remember what Al was talking about. Mustangs eyes got real wide.

“Wait, seriously?” His elbows were on the table now, listening intently. “Who?”

Hawkeye looked at him funny. “I didn’t know you cared about baseball, sir.”

He got all fake serious and looked her dead in the eyes.

“Ask a superior officer how the local team is doing, and they’ll _help_ you procrastinate.”

Ed wasnt able to tell if he was making a joke or not. Neither did Hawkeye because she just kinda rolled her eyes.

“If you say so, sir.” She glanced at Al but a lot kinder looking. “Sorry for interrupting you, Al.”

“It’s okay.” He shifted around in that real excited way he always did when you got him started on something. “Anyway, it was a publicity stunt, I think. A member of the…the, um…”

He trailed off an started tapping his chin with a hum. He looked at Ed real fast like which startled him a little but thankfully his brother didnt say anything bout it.

“Ed, do you remember what the team name was? I can’t seem to remember…”

Ed hummed a bit too cause he was thinking _real_ hard about this one. So hard that his tail had started to move from side to side on its own a bit but he didnt even notice realy. He suddenly sat up a little straighter even though he almost fell out of his damn chair in the process.

“The Leos!”

He had no idea why he was so worked up about being able to remember a stupid name but his brother seemed happy about it so he was to.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Al almost sounded kinda relieved about something but Ed wasnt sure what. “The East City Leos. Yeah, I remember now! They wanted to compare some pitcher’s fastball speed to one thrown by a regular person with automail. They held some raffle, and a person from Resembool with automail made by Winry and Aunt Pinako ended up winning.”

Thinking about Winry made his heart feel like it was being warmed and stabbed at the same time. Now that he was remembering the story more and more it would have had to have been when they were nine or so. It was real jumbled in his head. Just a collection of random stuff like sunshine and bird calls and a smug man in a red pinstripe uniform.

The colonel made a low sound. “I don’t think I ever heard about this.”

“Officially, it got canceled, I think, ‘cause the pitcher couldn’t even come close to the speeds being put out by a random farm hand from the sticks. The guy they sent just kept getting angrier until he snapped and accused him of cheating.” His brother was really getting into the story now he was practically leaning over the table. “He called the guy’s arm a ‘pile of scrap.’ Winry was inconsolable.”

“That’s _horrible!”_ Hawkeye cut in with a real stern expression on her face. Ed looked back at his brother and he was pretty sure hed have been grinning if he could.

“Yeah, well, he got what was coming to him.”

Even though Ed already knew the end of the story he couldnt wait. Now he was leaning forward to.

“When Ed,” Al nudged a hand towards him, “heard about what happened, he was fuming. He went straight to where the guy was staying and walloped him.”

Mustang looked like he realy didnt believe it at all. “How did he not get arrested?”

Al shrugged. “Would _you_ want to admit you got beat up by a nine year old?”

Ed laughed.

It wasnt very long at all but when he looked back at everyone they were staring at him like hed grown a second head. For a bit he honestly thought maybe he did. All the attention on him made him feel like he was being buried so he looked down at the floor and tried to pretend he didnt exist again.

Under the table he swore he saw Hawkeye step on the colonels foot realy realy hard. Somehow he didnt scream or nothin so maybe Ed imagined that.

“Brother…” Oh great and now they were gonna do a pity party or something to. Hed been dumb enough to believe things were good for a single lousy second and look what happens.

“W-whatever,” Ed mumbled and looked back up real quick like since he accidentally saw his feet. “Just…don’t like being st—sta…stared at.”

He hated that stutter so much. If he was gonna be a monster he didnt want people to think he was all fragile to. 

Ed was tired. He leaned forward and put his chin on the table and decided to give up on social inter…interaction for the day. His plate was barely half finished but suddenly he didnt feel very hungry anymore.

“We’re sorry, Ed.” Seeing the colonel look all earnest like that was kinda creepy to be honest. “If I can—”

“Shut up.” Ed used the last of his energy to tell him that. Luckily it seemed to work cause nobody tried to say anything after that. Mustang thankfully let them just slip back upstairs without having to say nothing.

The second they had gotten back to the room the colonel gave Al a heavy look. His brother looked back at him with a real serious expression to.

“I’ll be right back, Ed.”

Ed realy did not want to be away from his brother but hed already been such a huge burden all day that it just wasnt fair of him to take up any more time. He gave a short little nod and his brother left though he had that kinda stance he always had when he was guilty about something. It was pretty mysterious cause what had _he_ done to feel guilty? Ed was the wrong one.

Mustang had left that dumb book on the foot of the bed. He wished he could have his alchemy books instead but those were all the way in the suitcase on the other side of the room and thatd mean walking and he realy realy realy did not want to think about the fact that he would never be able to walk normal ever again right now and the book was looking like a great distraction right now he should read it.

The book wasnt made for his hands. His…his claws kept catching on the pages and everytime they did the feeling made him want to vomit up all the food he had just eaten but at least the words on the page could distract him for a little while. He probably read three times slower and got less out of it which was terrifying but once he got all caught up in the book it was great that he could just forget that for a bit.

So he just kept at it for as long as he could. Trying not to think about anything else.

For a little while it almost seemed alright.

* * *

Al marched listlessly back to the kitchen, where two gaunt faces met his return.

Hawkeye did her level best to meet his gaze.

“I’m not sure if this is much help to you, Al, but…” She took a moment to reassert her composure. “For what it’s worth, given everything Ed is going through, I think it’s a testament to his strength that he’s doing as well as he is.”

It felt laughable to describe anything about his brother’s current state as “well,” but he had to begrudgingly concede the point. The very fact that Ed was coherent enough to talk and understand and _remember_ was nothing short of a miracle. In all honesty, it was several levels beyond that.

And yet…

His brother had a heart of steel, but even he had a breaking point, and he was afraid Ed might be closer to it than any of them wanted to admit out loud. His brother might be “doing well” _now,_ when he was still able to bury his head in the sand and ignore reality, but that wasn’t sustainable for any real length of time. It was unhealthy. For _both_ of them. Something needed to be done, and soon.

But what?

Quietly, they saw Lieutenant Hawkeye off.

“We’re trying to get Nina settled with Hughes and Gracia,” she had explained as he put her coat on. “It’s been…well, apparently she hasn’t been taking the whole situation very well. They’ve only explained about as much as she needs to know, but…”

“Yeah,” Al replied numbly, staring at the ground, before looking up suddenly. “What about Tucker?”

“He’s in the ICU, in jail. They’re expecting to hold his trial within the week.” The heat in her eyes melted the snow outside, before softening. “Hopefully once things calm down a bit, we’ll be able to figure out a more permanent solution to everything else.”

With a curt wave, she was gone into the winter afternoon.

For the second time that day, a passing thought long abandoned returned like a comet to strike him through the head. It startled him at first, terrifying him out of his wits, but it faded, leaving hardened determination.

Al had a plan.

It was going to be difficult. Not necessarily to execute, but the mental toll it would take on everyone involved would be _staggering._ But the temporary lull of peace he felt now was like a flimsy bandaid slapped on to a gaping stump-wound. They needed to rip the thing off before the real treatment could begin. It was going to get worse before it got better, but really, how much worse could it _get_ at this point?

Steeling his nerves, Al looked upwards. Mustang, who was busy doing the dishes, soon caught sight of Al, giving him his full attention once he did. It spiked his already spiking nerves. If he still had a body, he might’ve passed out from tension.

“I have an idea.”

Mustang seemed startled by his forceful delivery. “You do?”

Carefully, Al explained. By the end, the man’s face looked like it had lost several liters of blood, but there was a current of something else that appeared all the stronger for it.

Hope.

“…Do you think it’s a good idea?” Al twiddled his thumbs and peered into the spiral patterns of the planks on the wood floor.

The Colonel just closed his eyes and folded his arms, humming.

“That…” He peered to the side. The afternoon light filtered through the stark white laced shades, mocking them with the sunny blue overtones that brightly charged the air. “I’d like to say I don’t approve, but honestly? It might be the best thing we’ve got.”

They slipped into a moment of afternoon stagnation for what felt like minutes. Idly, Al thought of Ed. Eventually, the timeless moment slipped away, and the Colonel spoke.

“When are you going to call her?”

“Today,” Al answered immediately. “But I need to check with Ed first.”

Mustang gave him a sympathy wince. “That’s not going to be an easy sell.”

“It won’t be.” Al stared towards the window. The cold sun soothed his racing mind, even if only by a fraction of a hair. “But it’s going to happen sooner rather than later, right? The longer we put it off, the less time we’re going to have to prepare for when it finally rolls around.”

Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Strangely, it seemed that was where the brothers were in their element.

He walked back up the stairs, nearly gliding back to the room with how weightless he felt. When Al opened the door, he saw his brother lying on the bed, still. For a heart-stopping moment, he feared the worst, but after sanity kicked back in, it was clear Ed had just managed to fall asleep. Given how draining the entire morning had been…could Al really blame him?

Briefly, Al considered waking him, but decided against the notion. His brother deserved peace, even if it was only in his dreams.

That fleeting moment from breakfast, hearing his sparkling laugh again, watching his face light up like the sun? A vision from another lifetime, now, all too soon replaced with a too-familiar deluge of darkness, inadvertently washed away with their piercing gazes. Al would have given anything to have it back, but once it fell into his lap, he let it drift away. He never knew what he had until it was gone.

The way his brother was holding the book was unnatural, though, even if he understood why. Silently, he took out a bookmark from their suitcase, tucking it into the open page— _Chapter 3: The Deadball Era_ —and placing it neatly to the side, before pulling the covers over Ed a bit more. His brother smiled, cuddling into the sheets and smiling.

It was the faintest, most elusive of victories. Al decided to grab hold of it and never let go. He carved the image into his mind, savoring every scrap of it.

After all, he needed something to get him through the inevitable talk to convince Ed to let Winry come over as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know exactly what you must be thinking right now: "was the Deadball Era a real thing?" Yes, it was! I'm sure that was definitely, 100% the only thing you had to say after reading this, so I'll leave it at that.

**Author's Note:**

> :^)


End file.
